Google has always been a rule breaker

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s "gift" of more than a few million to a startup where company co-founder Sergey Brin's wife works has raised a few eyebrows. Not that there is anything wrong here. The mission of 23andMe (the biotech firm in question) is to make the human genome searchable and browsable. We all have a need for that, don't we?

Google's been a maverick right from its inception as a public company almost three years ago. The company sold shares in "dutch auction" format upon its IPO to give anyone the capability to buy shares. Since that time, the company has performed tremendously in the market and in its industry, and it continues to grow (and acquire) at an astounding rate. Is this all coincidence, or did Google have some master plan all along that just worked out perfectly?

Hard to say -- but the company does have a penchant for investing in the strange and unusual, and the biotech/genomic field qualifies. What on earth could a web search company want with investing in the human genome? Plenty -- and Google shareholders are unlikely to complain about these seemingly oddball investments if Google continues to perform as it has. While I still think Google's overall plan is to become the largest advertising network on the planet, the cash from that strategy will continue to fuel its unofficial mission: to make as much information about everything known to humankind available to anyone who wants it at any time and on any device. Enabling the future of pure information democracy, so to speak. If that's really Google's goal, the company is like no other before it.