Like any good ro-man-on-man-tic comedy, before Bill Gates and Warren Buffett had their first encounter at Gates's parents' home in 1991, they didn't want to meet each other. Says Buffett: "While we're driving down there, I said, 'What the hell are we going to spend all day doing with these people? How long do we have to stay to be polite?" Says Gates: "I told my mom, 'I don't know about a guy who just invests money and picks stocks. I don't have many good questions for him; that's not my thing, Mom." Both showed up at the appointed time anyway — Buffett in a economy-sized car, Gates in a helicopter. It was love at first bluster, according to the Financial Times."We talked and talked and talked and talked and paid no attention to anybody else. I started asking him a whole bunch of questions about his business, not expecting to understand any of it. He's a great teacher, and we couldn't stop talking," Buffett told the newspaper. "We were sort of ignoring all these important people, and Bill's father finally said, gently, that he'd prefer that we join in a little more." Then the conversation turned to sex and computers. As the night wore on — Gates's helicopter had to fly before it got dark, and he let it go — Gates and Buffett grew more and more fascinated with each other. Buffett asked Gates about IBM and Gates told him to buy stock in Microsoft and Intel. Then, per the rules of the buddy-comedy genre, Gates objectified a woman. (The idea being, of course, to share a sexual course of thought without crossing any societal norms.) Says Buffett: "Bill started trying to convince me to get a computer."

I said I don't know what it's going to do for me. I don't care how my stock portfolio is doing every five minutes. And I can do my income taxes in my head. Gates said he would pick out the best-looking gal at Microsoft and send her to teach me how to use the computer. He would make it totally painless and pleasant. I told him, 'You've made me an offer I almost can't refuse, but I will refuse it.