“

It is surely unprecedented for a person to spend $5,252,722 to get a job, but in a funny way, that is precisely what Ted Weschler, of Charlottesville, Virginia, did. The details, in all their improbability:

Warren Buffett announced this morning that Weschler, 50, the highly successful managing partner of hedge fund Peninsula Capital Advisors, will soon join Berkshire Hathaway to run a portion of its investments. That move, added to the hiring of Todd Combs last year, is aimed at preparing investment-rich Berkshire for a day when Buffett, who just turned 81, will no longer be running the company’s investments.

And how did Buffett get to know Weschler? It’s here that fact becomes stranger than fiction.

Every year, Glide, a San Francisco church and mission, is the beneficiary of an auction in which the prize for the top bidder is a private lunch with Buffett.

In the first year of the lunch, 2000, the winner donated $25,000 to Glide. The auction price then proceeded to skyrocket, and in 2010, an anonymous bidder won with an amazing $2,626,311 bid.

Then, this year, a bidder also wishing to be anonymous won by upping that bid by $100, to $2,626,411.

So here, in a state of affairs being disclosed publicly for the first time, is the fact: Weschler was the winning bidder in both years.

”

Meet Ted Weschler: Buffett auction winner, Berkshire’s new hire - The Term Sheet: Fortune’s deals blog Term Sheet

An old story, but it’s a great one.