Want to lunch with Buffett? Be prepared to shell out. The highest bid for a meal with the Oracle from Omaha has already hit US$760,000.
All proceeds from the annual Power Lunch eBay auction benefits Glide, a charity devoted to lifting people out of poverty in the San Francisco Bay Area.
He describes the non-profit as “maybe the most effective organization I’ve seen for people down on their luck. It takes people who have hit bottom and brings them back. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
Read: Buffett to become top 10 Goldman investor
The auctions have raised nearly $15 million since they began in 2000, with a record $3,456,789 anonymous bid paid last year.
Back in 2010 and 2011, winning the meals became Ted Weschler’s biggest networking advantage. Weschler paid a combined $5.3 million for two Buffett lunches that led to his hiring as a Berkshire Hathaway portfolio manager.
Weschler and Buffett ate at the Berkshire billionaire’s favourite steakhouse Piccolo Pete’s in his hometown of Omaha instead of the auction’s usual lunch spot at New York’s Smith & Wollensky steakhouse. The “two men liked each other right away,” reports Carol Loomis of Fortune, who spoke to Weschler at the time.
Bidding for this year’s lunch closes this Friday at 7:30 p.m. PDT.
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