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“Bill III [then-Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates Jr.] … was brought round to meet Buffett. … Buffett skipped the small talk; he immediately asked Gates whether IBM was going to do well in the future and whether it was a competitor of Microsoft. … Gates started explaining. … Within two minutes the two were deeply immersed in conversation. … [They] talked on, even as many of Seattle’s best-known people circulated around them. … [They] took a walk on the pebbly beach. They were starting to attract attention.” (pp. 622-623)

(Photo of Warren Buffett by DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/Getty Images)