Author Ken Auletta is in a unique position to compare Microsoft and Google, having written "World War 3.0" about the Redmond company's antitrust era and the new "Googled," an inside look at the search company. So his perspectives on the tech giants were interesting to hear during an event in Seattle tonight promoting his Google book.

Google now is similar to Microsoft in the 1990s in that its top executives seem surprised that the government would consider the company worthy of regulatory scrutiny, Auletta said in response to questions from the Seattle Times' Brier Dudley in front of an audience at the Seattle Central Library's Microsoft Auditorium.

But there are still differences between the two, Auletta said.

"Microsoft, I came to think, were cold businessmen. They really wanted to harm Netscape," Auletta said. "Google, they're not cold businessmen, they're cold engineers. No, it's true. They're not trying to kill the opposition, but they will kill opposition, but it's inadvertent. ... They're not consumed by the thought of destroying their opposition. Bill Gates was consumed -- and Microsoft was consumed -- by the thought of destroying Netscape."

He continued later, "If you're an advertiser, and you're dealing with Google, you're worried that they will jack up the rates. And if they're the only one digitizing books, you worry, what will they do with that power? Will they start charging libraries? Will they start charging more to buy an electronic book? These are all legitimate questions which their engineers tend not to be sensitive about, because, again, they can't quantify it, and it takes kind of an emotional intelligence that they lack -- to feel, anticipate, have empathy to understand what the other guy or the government might worry about."

Hear that and more from Auletta in the clips above -- a few slices of a much broader conversation on subjects ranging from online privacy concerns to Google's move into software for mobile phones. The revelations in Auletta's book include news that Google at one point contemplated buying the New York Times.

Previously: Google wants to avoid Microsoft's mistakes