Google parent company Alphabet’s stock shot up nearly 11 percent after announcing more than $5 billion in stock buybacks today. But it wasn’t just $5 billion, it was $5,099,019,513.59 exactly. As Tim Bradshaw pointed out on Twitter, that’s a very specific number for the otherwise boring announcement of a stock buyback. But there was something hiding in the digits.
Turns out, that number is the square root of 26, multiplied by a billion. As you may have heard, Google recently created a new parent company called Alphabet, and the English alphabet has 26 letters. It appears that Google’s new parent company has the same sense of humor as its predecessor — which makes sense because Sergey Brin and Larry Page are still in charge.
@lexnfx It's the square root of 26 e18th. Those Google guys! They have so much fun with numbers.
— George Anders (@GeorgeAnders) October 22, 2015
