The chairman of a Chinese company which develops online video games is to pay $2,345,678 for a private lunch with billionaire investor Warren Buffett after winning a charity auction.
According to Shanghai Daily, this year's auction was the 16th to benefit the Glide Foundation, a nonprofit in San Francisco's Tenderloin district that provides food, health care, rehabilitation and other services to the poor and homeless.
The foundation said that Zhu Ye, chairman of Beijing-based Dalian Zeus Entertainment Co, submitted the highest of 76 bids to win the five-day auction on eBay, which concluded on Friday night.
Buffett, the chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, says he will talk about almost anything, including philanthropy and life, but not what he is buying and selling.
"Every year, it's an interesting experience," said Buffett. "I've met a lot of great people, made new friends, hired a person, had a lot of good steaks, so I can't complain," he said.
Buffett is in huge demand for his investing nous, and more than 40,000 people attended the company's annual meeting in May to listen to him answer questions. In 2011, Zhao Danyang, an investment fund manager from Hong Kong, spent $2.1 million at an earlier Glide auction to earn the same privilege.