Erik Hayden | February 17, 2011
Tonight, President Obama will host a private dinner with Eric Schmidt, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and a smattering of other Silicon Valley luminaries. What interesting topics will the Ruling Overnerds discuss? "The meeting is a part of our ongoing dialogue with the business community on how we can work together to win the future, strengthen our economy, support entrepreneurship, increase our exports and get the American people back to work," stated a White House release.Surely, the minds behind Google, Facebook and Apple are meeting with the President of the United States for more reasons than "winning the future" (although, naturally, that's a fairly important topic). Let's take a look at a longer version of the White House release: "The meeting is a part of our ongoing dialogue with the business community on how we can work together to win the future, strengthen our economy, support entrepreneurship, increase our exports and get the American people back to work... The president and the business leaders will discuss our shared goal of promoting American innovation and discuss his commitment to new investments in research and development, education and clean energy."In other words? This meeting--which the White House emphasized is not a fundraiser--may just help shore up potential donors for Barack Obama's reelection efforts, raise the profiles of every other CEO on the list, and provide the President with a quintessential "I'm doing all I can to innovate" moment by conferring with the most notable names in American industry. And if Silicon Valley types just happen to decide to donate to Obama's reelection campaign later, the White House wouldn't mind.
