“It was a conversational, pretty chill lunch,” Mr. Budlong said, calling Mr. Buffett “folksy, down to earth and legitimately funny.”<br />One of the next year’s winners, Jim Halperin, 64, a collector<br />and auction house executive who heard of the auction because he held shares in Berkshire Hathaway, said Mr. Buffett held the meal at his country club in Omaha.<br />This Year, It’s $2,679,001 -<br />By JACEY FORTINJUNE 10, 2017<br />A bidder on eBay offered nearly $2.7 million to have lunch with the billionaire investor Warren<br />Buffett, as part of an annual auction to benefit a nonprofit organization in San Francisco.<br />That gave Mr. Budlong, now 52, the opportunity to spend hours chatting with Mr. Buffett,<br />his then-wife, Susan Buffett, and seven friends at a San Francisco restaurant.<br />“He was really nice, seemed as interested in us as we were in him.”<br />As the years have gone by — and as the auction moved from an event based in San Francisco<br />to a site on eBay — winners have come from as far as Singapore and China.<br />The first winner in 2000, Pete Budlong, a technology entrepreneur, placed a winning bid of $25,000 at a lively, in-person auction in San Francisco<br />that was hosted by the actress Sharon Stone and the comedian Robin Williams.
