Apple CEO Tim Cook is a pretty popular guy. So it makes sense that a Charitybuzz user named kerb.karma is willing to pay to have coffee with Cook in an auction. But 190,000? In real United States dollars? With nineteen days left to bid?
Think about it. That’s the equivalent of a four-year college education, a starter apartment in Bushwick, or a senator’s annual salary, all for an awkward coffee date with a CEO. I can kind of understand the people who pay a lot of money to hang out with Warren Buffett; he sometimes gives those people jobs. But what could Tim Cook and kerb.karma possibly talk about?
Here’s how I imagine that conversation going:
“So, Mr. Cook, what’s it like being Apple’s CEO?”
“Pretty good, I guess.”
“And the iWatch? Pretty cool idea. You gonna do that?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Okay.”
[Both look down at floor.]
Plus, we’re talking about Tim Cook, not an ex-president or Justin Bieber. This is a guy who spent most of his career as a middle manager at tech companies. Now he runs one. It’s a big tech company. But it’s a tech company. And he’s a guy. He’s never won a Nobel Prize, toppled a dictatorial regime, or invented a vaccine that saved millions of lives. He sells gadgets that other people invented and manufactured, and presides over a company with a history of exploitative labor relationships and complex tax-avoidance schemes.
If you’re about to spend $200,000 to spend half an hour with him — even if it’s for charity! — you should probably get your head examined.
