( CNN ) -- When Bill Gates testified via videotape in Microsoft 's antitrust trial in 1998 , he was combative and defensive , as if he could n't believe how stupid the entire procedure was . He did n't expect the tape to be shown in court . It was , and it was a disaster . Public opinion turned -- instead of a billionaire genius who had built Microsoft into the most valuable tech company in the world , he was a condescending monopolist who did n't have time for the legal system . Amazingly , Gates did n't see it coming . As Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen relates in his recent autobiography , the anti-Microsoft sentiment `` cut Bill to the core . '' Gates told the media that government attorney David Boies was `` really out to destroy Microsoft . '' In his rational engineer 's mind , Microsoft was simply a winner . It had beaten its competitors by being smarter and working harder . It seemed deeply unfair for the government to build a case based on the complaints of those competitors and undo everything that Gates had worked so hard for . Flash forward a decade . Google is the new Microsoft . It dominates its industry so completely that a few slight tweaks to its search engine can throw other companies into turmoil by burying them in search results . It 's using the incredible cash generated by that business to expand in a million different directions at once , from online video to social networking to mobile phones . The man running Google , co-founder Larry Page , has a lot in common with Gates . Like Gates , Page is often described in otherworldly terms , a near-genius with autistic tendencies like counting the seconds out loud while you 're explaining something too slowly to him . Like Gates , he has run his own company for his entire adult life and has had uninterrupted success . Like Gates , he has an engineer 's soul and is obsessive about cutting waste -- one of his first acts after taking over as CEO in April was to send an all-hands e-mail describing how to run meetings more efficiently . Like Gates , he is hugely ambitious -- he once suggested that Google hire a million engineers and told early investors that he saw Google as a $ 100 billion company . That 's $ 100 billion in annual revenue , not just stock value . ( It 's about one-third of the way there . ) And like Gates , Page may have a blind spot about the intersection of business and the Beltway . For instance , when Google paid $ 3.2 billion to buy display ad firm DoubleClick in 2007 , it got a search-engine marketing firm called Performics as part of the deal . Obviously , Google would have to let Performics go -- federal regulators would never let the dominant search company own a search marketing company . Except Page wanted to keep it , just to see how it worked . ( Google sold Performics to advertising conglomerate Publicis Groupe in 2008 . ) Back then , Page had a tempering force in Eric Schmidt , who was the company 's CEO and was originally brought in by its investors to provide `` adult supervision . '' But since Page reclaimed the CEO title , the brakes are off . In his first five months , Page has reorganized the company to his liking , cut a bunch of marginal projects like Google Health and mobile app maker Slide , launched a social network to compete with Facebook and bid $ 12.5 billion to buy Motorola 's mobile phone business . Now , antitrust investigators are circling Google -- just like they did with Microsoft . Europe has already launched a formal investigation , and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is taking a close look as well . As Google keeps expanding with big , bold moves , Page will find himself thrust into the spotlight like he 's never been before . For Google 's sake , here 's hoping he handles it with more grace than Gates . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Matt Rosoff . Copyright © 2011 Business Insider .
Bill Gates ' role in antitrust trial turned public opinion against him , Matt Rosoff says . Rosoff says Larry Page of Google is close to being in a similar position . Page is stretching everything from online video to social networking to mobile apps , he says .