Many have seen stock scam before. The last one was called Bre-X. There is no way to find out if any company is as bad as Bre-X, until it is too late. That's because no one wants to ruin the party.
The google phenomenon is a classic case of lucky fools in the right place at the right time, just like youtube, facebook, Mark Cuban, yahoo etc. If they had started 5 years earlier or later they'd have burned through their capital and gone broke, as countless other search engines, social networking, and video upload sites did. It's hilarious that people compare them with actually skilled businessmen who have proven ability across multiple economic cycles. Any night at the casino you can see someone who has won big on roulette. Fawning over them is insane, so why do people do it when someone wins at business roulette?
Yet, with all of his billions - Buffet owns NO SHARES of GOOG. Nada. Not even a measly (for him) 1000 shares. While GOOG may meet your "moat" test - it clearly hasn't met his.
Chevy is absolutely right. Warren Buffett was talking about enduring competitive advantages when referring to the moat test. Coca-cola may raise its prices but people are going to keep drinking it. If a competitor comes up with a faster and more relevant search engine, watch Google's future prospects disappear in a wink.
Were you long krispy kreme at 60? Juding by your stupid statmement and username I woudn't be surprised.
I'm only addressing the Buffet part of this. I have no idea what Krispy did or did not do with KKD stock. If Buffet is a proponent of "moats" - yet he does not own ANY GOOG, how is what KrispyKreme50 said a stupid comment? KO is like one of Buffet's top 5 holdings. Krispy is simply (accurately) stating Buffet's position, which the other poster, IMO, got wrong. (As an aside, the other poster's argument could have been applied to XRX also, a few decades ago. No Buffet-like moat there either ...) Anyway, bottom line here is that you are basically saying Buffet's philosophy is stupid. And to that, I'll just be polite and say "no comment" ...