Who said what inside the Trump tech meeting: Immigration, paid maternity leave and becoming the ‘software president’

[Of Note: The journalist responsible for this article was not present at the meeting]
At the top of the gathering between Silicon Valley executive and President-elect Donald Trump, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella brought up perhaps the most thorny issue: Immigration and how the government can help tech with things like H-1B visas to keep and bring in more talent. Nadella pointed out that much of the company’s spending on research and development was in the U.S., even if 50 percent of the sales were elsewhere, so that immigration would benefit those here. Surprisingly to the group, Trump apparently responded favorably, “Let’s fix that,” he said, without a specific promise, and then asked, “What can I do to make it better?” Apple CEO Cook brought up a related issue, that of science, technology engineering and math education, which has been a big initiative of President Barack Obama, and also was pushed by Trump’s campaign rival Hillary Clinton.

The STEM issue was also pushed hard by Facebook COO Sandberg, who focused Trump on that kind of education for women and underrepresented minorities. She then brought up the issue of paid maternity leave. In the campaign, Trump unveiled a plan for six weeks of leave for women, while Clinton was advocating for 12 weeks for parents of either sex. One of the most interesting exchanges was with Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt, who briefly noted that he pondered what he would do if he were president, and then made the point that governmental information-technology programs were antiquated and unsafe, and needed to be upgraded. Schmidt then suggested to Trump that he be the “software president,” a phrase Trump misheard as “soft” president. Trump was not going to be soft! Laughs all around!