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Google's public stance: Shucks, it never wanted to win the FCC's airwaves auction. The company just wanted to bid the auction's reserve and thereby force the winner into opening the spectrum, Google lobbyist Richard Whitt told the New York Times. The plan almost failed.

As Google's auction team — led by product manager Larry Alder — ratcheted up its billion-dollar bids to meet the reserve price, the competition stayed away. Top Google executives and the board suddenly decided to become concerned. Alder and his team were pulled into a board meeting and asked to explain again why Google was bidding against itself for spectrum it didn't want to own. "There were definitely some people at the company that had cold feet," Adler told the Times. "People had to be convinced that it was the right business decision." No wonder people on his team were getting sick.