The White House has released a pair of photos from President Barack Obama’s dinner with tech industry bigwigs Thursday evening in Woodside, Calif.
Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, on medical leave from his day-to-day duties with Apple, was there. A photo of the crowded dinner table shows Jobs sitting to Obama’s left, and Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to Obama’s right.
Also at the gathering, according to Search Engine Land: Carol Bartz, president and CEO of Yahoo!; John Chambers, CEO and chairman of Cisco Systems; Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter; Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO of Oracle; Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix; John Hennessy, president of Stanford University; Art Levinson, chairman and former CEO of Genentech; Eric Schmidt, chairman and outgoing CEO of Google; and Steve Westly, managing partner and founder of Westly Group. The dinner was hosted by tech investor and Google board member John Doerr.
What they talked about, specifically, is unclear. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told Reuters that Obama “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.”
Carney added that the group also discussed the importance of investments in education.
The San Francisco Chronicle suggests that Obama had a hidden agenda of raising campaign money, but he may not get too far with some of the tech luminaries in attendance; although most of the attendees have donated to Democrats, Zuckerberg and Costolo haven’t given a dime to Obama or any political party.