Bill Gates v. Warren Buffett On Competing With Google: Charge The Moat!

Fox Business landed an interview with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet this morning. Near the end (skip to the 6:10 mark) Fox’s Liz Claman talks about Buffett’s love of Google, quoting him: “Their moat of competitiveness is so wide and what they do is so tough to compare and to compete with that in that moat are sharks and crocodiles that no one can get near.” (Apparently Buffett doesn’t yet know about Google’s last line of defense, the Goats).

Gates fires back, saying that Microsoft is undeterred: “Well, technology companies do for a period get in these wonderful positions and, you know, it’s great that there’s somebody willing to attack those moats. Microsoft is undeterred. We look at each one of those crocodiles and we say charge!”

Buffet responds “No shark wants to come up against him,” and Gates ends with “So, it is, it is a daunting thing, but consumers benefit when somebody’s willing to take that on and say, hey, we can do a better search product.”

For the record, we agree. Google needs competition in the search space, and only Microsoft can compete on that scale. Whether they win or not, the Internet is healthier with more than one search provider.

The full clip is below:

http://foxnews1.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/foxnews1-foxbusiness-pub01-live/current/videolandingpage/fullPlayer/client/embedded/embedded.swf