Appetite for a bite with Tim Cook cools on auction site

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27401465

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A lunch date with Tim Cook has sold for close to $330,000 (£196,000) on the auction website CharityBuzz.

That was just over over half of last year's haul, when the website auctioned a coffee meeting with the Apple boss.

The money will benefit the Robert F Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.

CharityBuzz declined to reveal the winner, who will get a one-hour lunch with Mr Cook at Apple headquarters (cost of travel not included).

Mr Cook also added a second prize on Twitter, which will give the winner a VIP seat at an upcoming Apple event.

CharityBuzz had estimated the value of the lunch date at around $100,000.

Part of the reason for the lower price tag could be that CharityBuzz implemented a finance authorisation requirement for anyone wishing to bid on the auction.

But while appetite for a bite with Mr Cook may have cooled (or Silicon Valley lovers might just prefer a well-brewed cup of coffee), his stock, much like Apple's, remains high.

An auction for a similar lunch date with former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke took in just over $70,000, and a still-open auction for a coffee date with AOL boss Tim Armstrong - which also includes a tour of HuffingtonPost Live and a taped interview - currently has zero bids.

Warren Buffett, chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, was one of the first to popularise a "lunch with the boss"-style charity auction 14 years ago.

Last year, lunch with the "oracle of Omaha" sold for more than $1m on eBay, off the record $3.5m winning bid in 2012.