Coffee With Apple CEO? It’ll Cost You Big Bucks
Want to enjoy a cup of coffee with Apple CEO Tim Cook? As of now it will cost you over $210,000. Cook has volunteered, through the online-auction site Charity Buzz, to share up to an hour of his precious time with two lucky (and deep-pocketed) winners. Proceeds from the auction will go to The RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights, an international nonprofit founded as a memorial to Robert F. Kennedy by his family and friends.
In the auction’s first day, Cook received 52 bids, starting at $5,000 and spiraling upward quickly. The leading bid Thursday evening was $210,000, and there are still 19 days to go until bidding closes on May 14.
The coffee chat will happen at Apple’s Cupertino, California, headquarters. The winner may bring along one guest.
The move fits in with the more open public persona Cook has adopted since replacing late Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs. One of the knocks on Jobs was that he never contributed much of his considerable fortune, or celebrity, to charity — at least not in the public ways other tech titans like Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg have. Not only does this coffee date allow two lucky Apple fans to live their dream, a great PR move, but it contributes to society as well, a greater PR move.
Other celebs taking part in the auction for the RFK Center include Robert DeNiro, Alex Trebek, Carrie Underwood, Peyton Manning, William Shatner, and David Letterman.
– Katie Brockman