LONDON: What would you do if you had Rs 3 crore in your pocket? How about wanting to go on a coffee date with Apple CEO Tim Cook?
While many would not, a Durgapur Regional Engineering College alumni offered a whopping $580,000 bid for Cook's time in an online auction.
Rakesh Kumar
- a B Tech in electrical, electronics and communications engineering
from Durgapur who now lives in the US and is founder of a start-up Drbluetooth.com set up in Sunnyvale, California just nine months ago, however failed to win the bid by a whisker.
Kumar's company, which sells Bluetooth headsets was edged ahead by a mystery bidder who paid $30,000 higher and ended the auction at $610,000.
The online charity auction site CharityBuzz was auctioning off a 30-minute to one hour meeting with Cook at Apple's headquarters in California.
Bidding ended on Tuesday and the winner will now be invited for a chat with Cook in Cupertino along with a friend.
The auction has been running on the website since April 24.
It offered "the unique opportunity to have coffee with Apple CEO Tim Cook" and the first bid was placed at $6,000. It was to raise money for the RF Kenndy Center for Justice and Human Rights.
Kumar said the meeting would have given him and his company "a chance to showcase the whole concept of what we're doing to him."
Kumar said "What we can show on our website is very limited in comparison."
He also hoped that the meeting would bring his new company into the attention of high-profile investors.
"I'm sure he would give us some frank opinions," Kumar said.
The auction exceeded the auction houses' expectations. Though Cook isn't envisaged to have the same aura as Steve Jobs, nearly 100 high stake bids were made during the auction for Cook's time. They were mainly from app developers wanting Cook's time to impress upon him with their products.
Charitybuzz has earlier auctioned time with celebrities ranging from U2's Bono ($2,11,000) to Paul McCartney ($1,30,000) for a meeting.
Charitybuzz CEO Coppy Holzman said "Charitybuzz is blown away by the incredible support we've seen for the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights through our coffee with Tim Cook online auction. It broke Charitybuzz's record for the top-grossing auction item since the company's launch in 2005."
Rakesh Kumar
- a B Tech in electrical, electronics and communications engineering
from Durgapur who now lives in the US and is founder of a start-up Drbluetooth.com set up in Sunnyvale, California just nine months ago, however failed to win the bid by a whisker.Kumar's company, which sells Bluetooth headsets was edged ahead by a mystery bidder who paid $30,000 higher and ended the auction at $610,000.
The online charity auction site CharityBuzz was auctioning off a 30-minute to one hour meeting with Cook at Apple's headquarters in California.
Bidding ended on Tuesday and the winner will now be invited for a chat with Cook in Cupertino along with a friend.
The auction has been running on the website since April 24.
It offered "the unique opportunity to have coffee with Apple CEO Tim Cook" and the first bid was placed at $6,000. It was to raise money for the RF Kenndy Center for Justice and Human Rights.
Kumar said the meeting would have given him and his company "a chance to showcase the whole concept of what we're doing to him."
Kumar said "What we can show on our website is very limited in comparison."
He also hoped that the meeting would bring his new company into the attention of high-profile investors.
"I'm sure he would give us some frank opinions," Kumar said.
The auction exceeded the auction houses' expectations. Though Cook isn't envisaged to have the same aura as Steve Jobs, nearly 100 high stake bids were made during the auction for Cook's time. They were mainly from app developers wanting Cook's time to impress upon him with their products.
Charitybuzz has earlier auctioned time with celebrities ranging from U2's Bono ($2,11,000) to Paul McCartney ($1,30,000) for a meeting.
Charitybuzz CEO Coppy Holzman said "Charitybuzz is blown away by the incredible support we've seen for the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights through our coffee with Tim Cook online auction. It broke Charitybuzz's record for the top-grossing auction item since the company's launch in 2005."
