“Violet Trout imagined herself standing atop a high diving board, steeling herself to take the plunge despite a fear of heights, as she struggled last week to convince herself that she should trust her instincts and bid to own some shares of Google,” writes Gary Rivlin in today’s Wall Street Journal.

“Ms. Trout, 54, the president of Guardian Care Surgical in Louisa, Ky., has never bought a stock in her life. She has never owned so much as a single share of a mutual fund. And investing in Google, the popular Internet search engine that began accepting bids Friday in an unorthodox auction to sell its shares to the public, was a potentially perilous first step for a self-described ‘babe in the woods.’ “

“But Ms. Trout, who lives in rural Kentucky, has believed in the company’s two founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, since March, when the two were featured on the television show ‘CBS Sunday Morning.’ “

“Such nice young men, she thought, for lavishing benefits on their employees at a time of corporate givebacks, and for touting the company’s ‘don’t be evil’ motto when many corporate executives, to her mind, were doing just that.”

” ‘If I’m going to take the dive into this big pond of Wall Street, I feel they would be a great first date,’ Ms. Trout said in the days leading up to the start of the auction.”

“Ms. Trout was just one of the countless brave souls hoping to buy a small piece of Google in an auction expected to conclude some time this week. The competition to win pieces of Google involves suspense and strategy – not unlike the mind games people suffer through when bidding on a house in a hot real estate market. Some bidders are as inexperienced as Ms. Trout; others have long track records of winning and losing millions in the stock market.”

“Mark J. Pincus, for one, is a serial entrepreneur who never doubted he would bid on Google. Mr. Pincus, 38, helped found a company called Support.com that went public in July 2000 (it is now called SupportSoft.com). His net worth, he said, falls ‘between $30 million and $40 million, depending on the day.’ He is now the chief executive of Tribe Networks, a budding online community started last year.”

“Mr. Pincus, who lives in San Francisco, admires the iconoclastic bravado of the company’s two founders, but he is wagering several million dollars on Google solely on the belief that the company is wrong about how high the auction may take the price.”

“Those running the auction will set the price at the highest bidding level that ensures the sale of all 25.7 million shares. The company told the Securities and Exchange Commission late last month that it expected the price to be $108 to $135 a share.”

“Ms. Trout said she was prepared to bid as much as $150 a share to make sure she received the 5 or 10 shares she was hoping to buy.”

“But Mr. Pincus is convinced that the price will end up closer to $75 or $80 a share.”

” ‘This could be the buy of the century,’ said the excitable Mr. Pincus, who is employing a five-step auction strategy he dubbed ‘the Mark Pincus bidding plan.’ “