Dating Warren Buffett

House prices are plummeting, the dollar's worth half the British pound and the Dow has nearly crossed into bear market territory. But investors are apparently going long on billionaire lunches.

On Friday, the head of a Chinese investment fund submitted a winning bid of $2,110,100 in an annual charity auction on eBay to share a meal with Warren Buffett, more than triple last year's $650,100 price tag.

The proceeds go to the Glide Foundation, the San Francisco organization that provides food, shelter, health care and job training to the city's poor and homeless.

Buffett, chairman of Omaha, Neb., holding company Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said he dedicates his time each year to Glide because his late wife, Susan Buffett, volunteered there and introduced him to the founder, the Rev. Cecil Williams.

"I got a chance to really get exposed to what an extraordinary job he's done in helping people who the rest of the world has given up on," said Buffett, the world's richest man. "If I can tip my hat by having a lunch, I'm delighted to do it. It's an easy way to help a great man and a great cause."

Zhao Danyang, general manager of Pure Heart China Growth Investment Fund, and seven friends or family members will be able to eat with Buffett at New York steakhouse Smith & Wollensky. No topic is out of bounds other than individual stock picks.

The auction, now in its ninth year, opened June 22 at $25,000. The event brought in that much or less in its first three years, then jumped above $250,000 in its fourth, after going from a live auction to one conducted on eBay. The event has now raised nearly $4.4 million for Glide, an important contribution for an organization that struggles to raise $14 million annually.

"It helps us to make those budgets and it helps us to keep building and gives us some very important resources that people can rely on," Williams said. "Rather than just saying, 'Oh, here's some money and I'll be on my way,' (Buffett) decided to get involved and it's been a great relationship over the years."

Most bidders are investors. Last year's winners, money managers Mohnish Pabrai and Guy Spier, had lunch with Buffett this week. Spier brought his wife; Pabrai his wife and two daughters.

Buffett gave the girls a gift basket filled with candy from his subsidiaries, Mars and Wrigley Jr., including M&Ms with his picture on them. Pabrai suggested that his daughters might want to hang onto the M&Ms, but he was overruled.

The wide-ranging conversation over nearly three hours covered everything from investing philosophies to personal integrity to Eliot Spitzer, said Pabrai, 44, managing partner of Pabrai Investment Funds in Irvine, a family of hedge funds managing $500 million.

At one point, he said, Buffett asked whether he'd rather be the world's best lover and have the world think he's the worst, or be the worst and have it think he's the best. The point was that a good investor should have faith in "internal yardsticks," and not second guess strategies just because they seem unconventional to others.

"It was well worth every penny, probably worth a lot more than every penny," said Pabrai, who put up two-thirds of the $650,100.

Spier, chief executive of New York investment house Aquamarine Capital Management LLC, also said he would save or earn enough money based on what he learned during the meal to more than offset the cost. But he stressed that the contribution would be worth it even if he hadn't shared a meal with Buffett because Glide is so effective at confronting the challenges of poverty.

"If that was a for-profit company, (Berkshire) would have bought it and Williams would be in the pantheon of Buffett managers," he said.

Despite the market climate, Buffett had a pretty good financial year. In March, Forbes estimated that his net worth increased by $10 billion to $62 billion, putting him on top of its list of the world's richest people. He displaced Bill Gates, who fell to third after leading the pack for 13 years.

Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway in 1967, turning the struggling textile manufacturer into a holding company that today boasts a market value of $186 billion. It's heavily weighted with insurance businesses, including Geico, but also controls the Fruit of the Loom, See's Candies and Dairy Queen brands.

His track record picking winners is legendary, earning him the nickname the Oracle of Omaha. Each year, about 20,000 people descend on the Nebraska city to hear Buffett's words of investing wisdom at Berkshire's annual meeting. More than a dozen books have been written about him and his investing style.

But the Oracle of Omaha could just as deservingly be dubbed the Berkshire Benefactor.

In 2006, he said he would eventually donate 85 percent of his shares in the company to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and several family charities. He has argued in favor of maintaining the estate tax and for an overhaul of the tax system that would require the rich to pay the same proportion of their incomes in taxes as lower-income groups.

During the interview, Buffett noted that America's rich don't give much more to charity, as a percentage, than the population at large.

Asked if they should do more, he said: "I don't like to tell other people what to do, but certainly I should and my family should. Here I am undeniably lucky in many ways, and there are many who aren't so lucky."

"I just write a check," he added. "Cecil and others are dedicating their lives to it. They make it even easier for the rest of us" to give.

E-mail James Temple at jtemple@sfchronicle.com.