Mean vs Median: who is the average?

Twenty-one people work in this building. Twenty of them earn a normal wage. One of them owns the place. Drag the owner's pay and watch which number follows the money — and which one follows the people.

Salaries (thousands $)

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MEAN — add everything up, divide by 21
moved: $0K since you started
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MEDIAN — the 11th person when everyone lines up
moved: $0K since you started

Or drag the amber dot directly. The purple line is the mean: everything added up, divided by 21. The green flag is the median: the middle person in the queue — ten people earn below, ten above.

The wait, what?

Drag the owner past a million. The mean blew past every actual person in the building — the “average salary” now describes nobody. The median didn't blink: move the boss from $260K to $2M and the middle person's wage changes by exactly zero.

Neither number is lying. They answer different questions. The mean adds the total and shares it equally — useful if you're dividing the bill. The median points at a person — useful if you're describing them. When a headline says “average pay rose,” the first question is: which average, and whose money moved?