Tim Cook charity auction raises $515K for human rights
Apple CEO Tim Cook's latest charity auction closed on Thursday, with the winning bid raising$515,000 for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights.
The unnamed winner of the CharityBuzz auction will be able to eat lunch with Apple's chief executive at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. Like last year's auction, the winning bid also nets two VIP passes to an Apple event.
This is the fourth year in a row that Cook has offered up one-on-one time for charity, each auction raising hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 2015, a lunch at Apple HQ raised $200,000 for the RFK Center, while bids in 2014 hit the $330,000 mark. Cook's first auction, a 30-minute chat over coffee, raised a whopping $610,000 in 2013.
Like past CharityBuzz events, the winner of Cook's latest auction must find a date and time that works with the chief executive's schedule, a process that could take up to one year. The hour-long lunch is valid for a winner and one guest. Meal costs are included, but travel and accommodation arrangements are not. The auction does not specify VIP event ticket blackout dates, suggesting the winner might be able to attend Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
As with other major auctions, CharityBuzz does not disclose the winner's identity.
The unnamed winner of the CharityBuzz auction will be able to eat lunch with Apple's chief executive at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. Like last year's auction, the winning bid also nets two VIP passes to an Apple event.
This is the fourth year in a row that Cook has offered up one-on-one time for charity, each auction raising hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 2015, a lunch at Apple HQ raised $200,000 for the RFK Center, while bids in 2014 hit the $330,000 mark. Cook's first auction, a 30-minute chat over coffee, raised a whopping $610,000 in 2013.
Like past CharityBuzz events, the winner of Cook's latest auction must find a date and time that works with the chief executive's schedule, a process that could take up to one year. The hour-long lunch is valid for a winner and one guest. Meal costs are included, but travel and accommodation arrangements are not. The auction does not specify VIP event ticket blackout dates, suggesting the winner might be able to attend Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
As with other major auctions, CharityBuzz does not disclose the winner's identity.
Comments
On a somewhat related note, I'd like to point out a couple of things:
Anybody who conducts financial analysis on Apple in the traditional year-over-year fashion is irrationally ignoring the fact that their biggest product release pattern follows 2-year cycles. By this measure, iPhone (and overall) sales are up, in China and worldwide. If they are down this year compared to 2 years ago, that would be worse, but still not so bad, given the huge upswing two years ago, with the release of the iPhone 6. Also, foreign exchange rates have been making things a lot more difficult, and China's economy has been suffering a downturn, so it seems to me like they've actually been doing very well. If and when the forex situation swings back in Apple's favor, that will be a big boost, like a spring just waiting to be released.
In the last conference call, Tim said that iPad sales for the current quarter would be the best comparative results in years, so they seem to be making some headway against that trend.
Mac sales may be down, but Mac market share has been mostly going up, since the personal computer market has been shrinking faster.
There's still a 2-3 week wait for an iPhone SE, weeks after release. When was the last time they had an iPhone selling as fast as they could make them...in the June quarter?
And given the specs and pricing of the SE, it seems that they are confident that the 7 will be a big enough step up that they won't have to worry about the SE cannibalizing sales.
Coming soon.
For this I'm afraid, Tim you are fired!
http://www.bezosfamilyfoundation.org/
http://www.muskfoundation.org/