Marc Benioff lunch auction raises $1.5M for charity. Not bad for first year without Warren Buffett

By JOSH FUNK
AP Business Writer

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The $200,100 winning bid for a private lunch with software titan Marc Benioff might appear disappointing at first glance after years of multimillion-dollar bids for a private meal with investor Warren Buffett. But the winner also pledged to donate a total of $1.5 million to the California homeless charity that benefits from the auction. The weeklong eBay auction that raises money for the Glide Foundation in San Francisco wrapped up Friday night. This is the first year that a meal with Benioff, who is Salesforce’s Chairman and CEO, was the prize after Buffett raised $53 million for Glide over more than two decades of lunches.