It's reasonable to capitalize the hefty price for the benefit of current shareholders. Plus, the Pi mystery is cool!

The Mountain View, Calif., company was characteristically tight-lipped, declining to comment on the offering apart from a terse statement in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the filing, Google said it intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for "general corporate purposes, including working capital and capital expenditures, and possible acquisitions of complementary businesses, technologies or other assets." But it added in the filing that it has "no current agreements or commitments with respect to any material acquisitions."

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Amid all the mystery, the tech company seemed to leave a clue that suggests the size of the offering wasn't arbitrary by stipulating that the number of shares Google plans to sell is 14,159,265. Those are the first eight digits that follow the decimal in the value of pi (which is 3.14159265), a number representing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

Reaction to the surprise offering highlighted how Wall Street still struggles to anticipate the company's future business directions. Google has a track record of befuddling investors. Its unconventional auction-style initial public offering a year ago -- for 22.5 million shares -- left many investors confused and on the sidelines.

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The offering would increase the number of Google's Class A shares outstanding by 8%. It would more than double Google's cash balance, which stood at $2.95 billion at the end of June. As of 4 p.m. trading yesterday on the Nasdaq Stock Market, Google's shares were down $5.11, or 1.8%, to $279.99.