President Barack Obama joins a toast with technology business leaders at a dinner in Woodside, Calif., Feb. 17, 2011. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
University President JOHN HENNESSY was among the guests who had dinner with President Barack Obama in Silicon Valley Thursday evening. Obama met with the tech industry’s über-pioneers to pick their brains about innovation. In addition to Hennessy, the guest list included alums REED HASTINGS, MS ’88, MA ’98, CEO of NetFlix, and STEVE WESTLY, AB ’78, MBA ’83, former California state controller who currently is managing partner and founder of the Westly Group. The other invited guests were John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; 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; Steve Jobs, chairman and CEO of Apple; Art Levinson, chairman and former CEO of Genentech; Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google; and Mark Zuckerberg, founder, president and CEO of Facebook.
“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,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement issued after the dinner. “The group also discussed the importance of new investments in education and the new White House initiative Startup America, a partnership with the private sector aimed at supporting new startups and small businesses. The president expressed his desire to continue a dialogue with the group to share new ideas so we can work as partners to promote growth and create good jobs in the United States.”
