Google Bid Pi Billion Dollars For Nortel Patents

mikejuk writes "Google mystified other participants in an auction for patents last week by their choice of bids. They weren't the round regular numbers that are normally expected. After first bidding $1,902,160,540 — a reference to Brun's constant — and later bidding $2,614,972,128 for the Meissel-Mertens constant, they ended up submitting a bid for $3.14159 billion. Google ended up losing the auction — but was that a deliberate ploy?"

Comments

The deal fails when Nortel askes for exact change.

[Anonymous Coward]

The deal fails when Nortel askes for exact change.

CFO's glad they didn't take the next step

[Compaqt]

Google's CFO's glad they didn't take the next step after pi: tau (6.28...)

Re:CFO's glad they didn't take the next step

[SEWilco]

Google's CFO's glad they didn't take the next step after pi: tau (6.28...)

The CFO's would have been more worried at a bid for $googol.

Weird bid numbers are normal for large bids

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're willing to bid $3 billion for something, the last thing you want is for someone to bid $3 000 000 001.00, and beat you in the bid. So it is quite routine for bids on large contracts with a closed bidding process to use unusual numbers rather than round numbers. I've seen this in multi-tens or hundreds of million-dollar land acreage bids for the rights to drill for oil. They'll bid $30 545 777.88, and weird things like that. Usually the "extra bit" is a small percentage of the total bid amount, but if you're going to do that, why not have some fun with it? And if you're "mystifying" the other participants, good! That's the whole point -- to keep them guessing and prevent them from figuring out your strategy so they can't bid $1 more.

Patents have irrational value

[tdwebste]

All these bids are irrational numbers.

I think the message is clear. Patents have irrational value.

Re:Patents have irrational value

[LeDopore]

It gets better. If Google borrowed an amount of $ with a nonzero imaginary component, through the miracle of complex number exponentiation eventually the bank would owe *them* money.

Google: Global Superpower Math Nerds

[RobotRunAmok]

This is exactly the kind of behavior I would expect from a group of guys who, once routinely stuffed into their high school lockers, have now grown up (?) to become full-fledged white cat-stroking Bond villains.

I give it another 6-9 months more of federal government inquiries and subpoenas before they dig a moat around their campus and fill it with laser-headed sharks...

Big pies

[Groo Wanderer]

That's a big piece of pi.

                -Charlie

They have done these stuff many times

[akm1489]

Lol, Google guyz are math Maniacs they have already done such stuff in past for many times, i remember 1 they raised their market Cap in 2004 by e-billion dollars $2,718,281,828.

Principals didn't get it

[DNS-and-BIND]

I'll bet dimes to dollars none of the principals on this deal "got it". It's science, after all, and scientists are just manual laborers, in the same sort of class as plumbers. The only good people in society are in finance and top corporate management.

Pi

[ukemike]

That's a nice round number.

Re:Pi

[Alex Zepeda]

I thought pie are square?

Re:Of course they lost!

[icebike]

I'm pretty sure it wasn't the math gods they were trying to provoke.

Instead it looks as if they were in a non-serious bidding game to make the others over pay for what are probably soon obsolete patents anyway.