Obama meets with Silicon Valley tech elite

Amid a struggling economy and high unemployment, President Barack Obama met with a small, elite group of Silicon Valley business leaders to sound them out on his economic policies.

The President landed at San Francisco International Airport where he was greeted by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Kamala Harris, and San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee. He then posed for pictures with supporters before bounding onto a helicopter for a short flight to Cañada Community College in Redwood City. Later, the president's motorcade arrived in Woodside, where crowds gathered to cheer him on before he met with 12 tech executives for a private 90-minute dinner at the home of prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr -- a big campaign donor. Those invited included Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Twitter CEO Dick Costolo. White House officials confirmed all those on the guest list were present. Larry Gerston, professor of political science at San Jose State, called the gathering a "study session" and predicted President Obama would do more listening than talking with the leaders of companies around the table, who are hiring by the thousands. "Of the 66,000 jobs added in California last year, 12,000 -- 18 percent -- came from Silicon Valley, which has less than 5 percent of the state's population," he said. And talking tech with the likes of Jobs and Zuckerberg is good for the BlackBerry-toting president's image, Democratic political consultant Jude Barry said. "Obama is better at embracing Silicon Valley than other elements of American business," he said. "Americans don't blame Google and Facebook for losing their homes." But Orson Aguilar, executive director of the Berkeley-based Greenlining Institute, a multiethnic public policy group, took aim at Obama for "schmoozing wealthy tech moguls" while his 2012 budget proposal calls for cuts in social programs.