Expensive Lunch

For the last several years, legendary investor Warren Buffett has auctioned off a lunch with him with the proceeds going to benefit the Glide Foundation, a charitable organization from San Francisco. The lunches are held at Smith and Wollensky in Manhattan.

The first auction, won by an anonymous bidder, generated $25,000. Among the announced winners over the years is David Einhorn, founder of hedge fund Greenlight Capital, who paid $250,100 in 2003.

This years winner, Zhao Danyang of Purehart China Growth Investment Fund, paid a startling $2.1 million to break bread with Buffett, more than tripling the previous winning level. For that kind of coin, maybe Buffett will bring along his philanthropic pal Bill Gates.