President Barack Obama dined with a dozen leaders of the US technology industry including Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as he sought support for his education and innovation agenda and discussion on promoting growth.
The president met privately with the executives last night at the secluded home of John Doerr in Woodside, California, a wealthy community about 25 miles south of San Francisco. Doerr is a senior partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.
“The president specifically discussed his proposals to invest in research and development and expand incentives for companies to grow and hire, along with his goal of doubling exports over five years to support millions of American jobs,” spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement after the meeting, which lasted more than two hours.
Carney said the group also discussed the importance of investments in education and a new joint government and private sector partnership aimed at supporting startups and small businesses.
Also attending the session were Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Carol Bartz, head of Yahoo!, Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, Reed Hastings, CEO of NetFlix, Arthur Levinson, Genentech chairman, John L Hennessy, president of Stanford University, and venture capitalist Steve Westly, managing partner of The Westly Group, according to a White House statement. The event was closed to press coverage.
