Community Corner
President Obama Meets with Silicon Valley Leaders
At a private dinner last night at the home of John and Ann Doerr, the President gathered ideas about creating jobs and educational opportunities from some of the Silicon Valley's most innovative thinkers.
If you want to gather the most forward-thinking ideas about creating jobs and changing the face of education in America, where do you go? To Silicon Valley if you're President Obama, who sat between Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg when he dined last night in Woodside at the home of John and Ann Doerr.
The president arrived Thursday night and met privately with 12 leaders from technology companies to discuss his commitment towards investing in research and development, education and clean energy.
Doerr, a partner in the venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, hosted a private dinner for the President with a stellar list of attendees including Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook; Steve Jobs, Chairman and CEO of Apple, John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems; Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle; Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix; Carol Bartz, CEO and President of Yahoo; Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter; Art Levinson, Chairman of Genentech; Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google; state controller Steve Wesley, and Stanford University President John Hennessy.
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Except for Twitter's Costolo, all of the guests belong to TechNet, an advocacy group started in the Silicon Valley in 1997.
“I was honored to be part of the discussion with President Obama and Silicon Valley business leaders. Government and private industry must work hand-in-hand to spur innovation, strengthen our economy and get Americans back to work," said John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco.
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"Our ongoing dialogue with the Administration gives us confidence that we can boost innovation and investment in America," he said.
According to the TechNet website, the group is committed to "advancing public policies and private sector initiatives that make the U.S. the most innovative country in the world," a goal that was also noted by the President in his recent State of the Union speech.
President Obama flew out of San Francisco International Airport this morning after a one-day visit with business and technology leaders. Air Force One departed from the airport at 8:46 a.m.
Obama will next head to Hillsboro, Ore., to visit an Intel Corp. plant and learn about the company's STEM, or Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, education programs.
Bay City News contributed to this report.
