Apple CEO Tim Cook's fourth annual CharityBuzz auction ended this afternoon, raising more than $500,000 for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The auction, which garnered more than 40 bids, includes a one hour lunch date with Tim Cook At Apple's Cupertino headquarters along with passes to a forthcoming Apple keynote event.
Two people are able to attend the lunch meeting with Cook, with the experience set to last for approximately one hour. While lunch is included in the price of the auction, travel and accommodations are not. The offer expires on May 5, 2017, and the winner will be able to schedule their appointment on a "mutually agreed upon date."
In the final hours of the auction, bidding ramped up significantly, jumping from $275,000 yesterday afternoon to the more than $500,000 finishing price.
At $515,000, the 2016 CharityBuzz auction brought in more money than it did in 2014 and 2015. In 2014, the auction raised $200,000, while in 2015, it brought in $330,001. In 2013, the first year the auction was held, someone paid $610,000 to have lunch with Cook.
It's possible the auction winner will be able to use the keynote event tickets to attend the keynote for the Worldwide Developers Conference, where Apple is expected to debut new versions of iOS, OS X, watchOS, and tvOS, and perhaps new Mac models.
Proceeds from the auction will benefit the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights, a charity Tim Cook has supported for several years. Earlier in 2016, Tim Cook was elected to the RFK Center's board of directors.
Top Rated Comments
"Why have you paid almost no attention to the Mac?"
"16 GB? Really?"
"How can iTunes still suck after all this time?"
And stuff like that :D
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Edit: Wow, so sad to see my post got edited (along with another the removal of another forumer's entire post) to remove any reference to the typo in the originally posted article that my remaining comment above partially refers to, that has very little context and makes little sense now. Another poster's comment and picture of an otter being removed entirely.
For anyone reading this in the future who was wondering, the article originally said that "The otter expires..." instead of "The offer expires...".
Mods, I'd like to suggest that rather than censoring posts in this way surely it would make more sense to strike-though the original typo like many websites do, rather than pretend it never happened. This is very on-topic, because 'Justice and Human Rights', as per the cause raising money from this offer, often rely upon openness and transparency rather than people in authority positions censoring the comments of others and then acting like the things that prompted the comments never happened in the first place.
Anyway, I'm glad this auction raised so much money for a good cause, and it would indeed be interesting to know what was on the menu.