---
title: "BizTech Q&A 63: I don’t know what a token is!"
description: Explaining what a token means in tech terms by comparing 1 million tokens to popular books and other relatable metrics.
image: https://thoughtsbrewing.com/hubfs/BizTech%20Q%26A%20(1).png
---

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# BizTech Q&A 63: I don’t know what a token is!

 December 14, 2025

![Picture of Damien Griffin](https://app.hubspot.com/settings/avatar/20cb51297a34e5d5d7c3362ec1fae755) [Damien Griffin](https://thoughtsbrewing.com/blog/author/damien)

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*Answering your questions about business and technology*

### Question

*I see that Google Gemini 3 has a 1 million token context window. How much is that  in non-techie terms?

~ Anonymous*

### Answer

Hello,

Yeah, I feel like there’s a sharknado of terms these days for people who don’t hang out in tech circles.  (Are you questioning my “sharknado”?  Tsunami seemed overused…)

Hopefully you are a book reader (or that book references will help you make sense of tokens…)  If so, here are some book comparisons for 1 million tokens:

- - Harry Potter Series - 7 books - About 70% would fit
    - The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Hobbit - 100% would fit with space left over
    - War and Peace - 100% would fit with space left over
    - Les Miserables - 100% would fit with space left over
    - King James Bible - Old and New Testaments - 100% would fit 
          - This is probably the closest to 1 million of everything on the list

If books didn’t help, then hopefully one of these will land:

- - Roughly 750,000 words
    - About 1500 pages
    - If you read at average speed, it would take about 50 hours of non-stop reading
    - If you type 40 words per minute - 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, it would take 2 months of typing

TL:DR - A lot

And if it isn’t enough, you can just start a new chat and get a new 1 million…

 

Hope that helps

~ Damien

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