12.3. GATES ON GOOGLE
Bill Gates admitted that Google "kicked our butts" on search-engine technology. He later announced that Microsoft would launch its own search engine.[] "Google is still, you know, perfect," Gates said in 2005. "The bubble's still floating. You should buy their stock at any price. We had a ten-year period like that."[]
Microsoft was at the height of its attempt to acquire Yahoo! when Gates was asked how he felt about the fact that Google was invented at the William Gates Building at Stanford University. Gates began his usual boxing shuffle when asked a question, bobbing and glancing up, down, and sideways. "Competition is a good thing," he said (pause, shuffle). "On the other hand, nobody's doing a very good job of competing with Google right now."[]
The next day, to Google's delight, Microsoft abandoned its bid to purchase Yahoo!.
When Gates heard that Google agreed to Chinese censorship rules so it could attain access to the lucrative Chinese market, he chortled that perhaps the company motto should become, "Do less evil."[]
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