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Comment by mikeklaas | Hacker News Reader

I reject the conclusion that using mathematical constants as bid means Google didn't take the auction seriously: clearly they had set out a limit and bid up to it.

Is there any evidence that Google chose not to bid in because there was no available mathematical constant between the competitors' highest bid and their internal valuation?

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Look at it from the point of view of business, financial, and lawyers familiar with how auctions work. This type of behavior is "weird" and not according to convention. The rebel in a lot folks is ok with this, but it goes against "normal" behavior in these situations. Wearing a pink tutu to the opera might make you feel rebellious, but it likely make other opera goers think less of you. Think of all the times business folks have messed over programmers in stuff that should be a programmer's prevue. An auctioneer would take Google's bids to be crazy or dismissive. You bid the increment, anything else is screwing with others and your shareholders.

I've been thinking the same thing ever since this story broke. I don't think bidding mathematical constants says anything about whether or not google was taking the auction seriously.

One account I read suggested Google made the leaps to constants early (and confused the other bidders with that move), but by the end were simply trading bids in the auction format's $100-million increments until the other side outbid them.

I can respect that; they still ultimately bid up to their reserve. Only earlier, when bidding was below what they expected the final price to be, they sent a geek-macho "we're still in the play-money range, fellas" signal.

The original article doesn't mention mathematical constant at all, just mentions dismissive behavior. Do you think Google was following something like what I proposed in another comment in this thread?

I didn't understand what you meant when you said using mathematical constants, so for those who didn't know as well:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/02/us-dealtalk-nortel...

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