When we checked in late yesterday afternoon, the bidding on lunch with Warren Buffett — auctioned off every year to benefit Glide's efforts to help the homeless in San Francisco — was hovering around $420,000. Not a bad haul, by any stretch, but kind of paltry compared to the $2.6 million Ted Weschler paid two years in a row to have lunch with the mind-bogglingly rich Nebraskan. (Weschler, it should be noted, ended up getting a job with Berkshire Hathaway afterwards, so the investment paid off?) Anyhow, a flood of last minute bids pushed the final charitable donation up to a record $3.45 million this year.

Unlike Weschler, this year's donor wished to remain anonymous, and Buffett doesn't expect to find his next big hire during the lunch at Smith and Wollensky's steak house in New York. Either way, it's always good news for the organization that Buffett called, "...maybe the most effective organization I've seen for people down on their luck."

If you're one of three people in San Francisco not familiar with Glide and the organization's work, here's that scene from The Pursuit of Happyness in which Will Smith and his kid attend their revelatory church service:

Previously: Generous Souls Willing to Donate Millions to Glide, In Exchange for a Steak Dinner with Warren Buffett
[BusinessWeek]