I had read about Google’s secondary offering for about $4 billion. But I didn’t know the specific number of stocks that will be offered. Yesterday I read that that specific number is 14,159,265 and Russell Buckley points out that it is the first eight digits of the fractional part of pi. It is so predictable. All of their clever numbers are some how related to the digits of pi.
I am reminded of an old joke mathematicians share. This young grad student challenged a professor with a complicated puzzle. After thinking for a second, the prof replied the answer is e. The prof went off to explain to the baffled student that it is easy to guess the answer is between 2 and 3 and so it reasons that the answer to be e.
Since Google has repeatedly uses pi for its clever numbering, it is time it starts to use “modern” numbers like e, Euler’s constant and Zeta constant. Don’t you think?
Posted by aswath at September 5, 2005 03:24 PM
Not in this case, Aswath. They're selling off a piece of the Pi...
Posted by: Alec Saunders at September 5, 2005 04:27 PMDidn't they use the digits of e in their IPO?
From wikipedia:
"On April 29, 2004, Google made an S-1 form SEC filing for an IPO to raise as much as USD $2,718,281,828 (with a touch of mathematical humor as e = 2.718281828...)."