Why This Billionaire Paid $2 Million To Have Lunch With Warren Buffet

Name: Why This Billionaire Paid $2 Million To Have Lunch With Warren Buffet
Uploaded: 2024-05-22T21:24:56+00:00
Duration: 58 s
Channel: Sam Parr
Description: In a 2024 YouTube video, a billionaire recounts his 2007 experience of bidding $2 million in a charity auction to have lunch with Warren Buffett. At the…

22 May 2024 · 1 min

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In a 2024 YouTube video, a billionaire recounts his 2007 experience of bidding $2 million in a charity auction to have lunch with Warren Buffett. At the time his net worth was $84 million, and the auction proceeds supported the Glide Foundation, which feeds the homeless in San Francisco. He describes Buffett’s unique agenda for these lunches: to make the winner feel they received a bargain and to act as a teacher, turning even simple questions into valuable lessons. The meeting lasted three hours, during which the billionaire and his companions asked endless questions until they were exhausted, prompting Buffett to offer to leave if they were bored. The anecdote highlights Buffett’s generosity, his educational approach, and the philanthropic context of the auction.

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In 2007, my net worth at that time was $84 million, and Warren had been running these charity lunch auctions where once a year you could bid on eBay to have lunch with Warren Buffett, and the money would go to the Glide Foundation, which was feeding the homeless in San Francisco. So I thought about it. It's okay, $84 million. What's an appropriate tuition bill? I said $2 million is good. Warren's agenda when he has these lunches is really different. His agenda is he wants the people who won that lunch to feel like they got a great bargain. He would take lemon questions and turn them into lemonade. So he's always exactly what he does in the Berkshire meetings is he's a great teacher. And so he was trying to give as much value as he could in that lunch. And like he told us when we met him, he said, look, I got nothing going on all afternoon, right? So when you guys are sick and tired of me, you just let me know and I'll leave. We kept asking him questions for 3 hours and then we were exhausted. And so we said, Warren, we just don't have anything else to ask you.