Rock star cast of characters at Obama meeting

Attendees included Zuckerberg, Schmidt, Jobs, Bartz, Costolo, Ellison, Hastings, and more

I just realized...has anyone EVER seen Mark Zuckerberg in a suit? Or really, in anything other than a T-shirt and jeans? I want to say I've never even seen him in closed-toed shoes, but I could just be imagining that...

Apparently, his Thursday night meeting with President Barack Obama gave Zuckerberg a reason to dress up. Obama flew in to San Francisco on Thursday night to meet with the leaders of twelve major technology companies, and few details have emerged about the secretive gathering, which was held in the home of Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr, according to the Washington Post.

As of Thursday afternoon, there was little information on the attendees or the nature of the meeting. Word had gotten out that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and Apple CEO Steve Jobs would be among those at the meeting, which would center around Obama's 2012 budget proposal. Last night, White House spokesman Jay Carney provided a few more details on the objective of the meeting in a statement to reporters: 

"The President believes that American companies like these have been leading by investing in the creativity and ingenuity of the American people, creating cutting-edge new technologies and promoting new ways to communicate. 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."

Other items on the docket included the White House initiative Startup America, which aims to provide support for new startups and small businesses, as well as investments in education. 

In addition to Zuckerberg, Schmidt, and Jobs, other attendees included Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings, Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, Stanford University president John Hennessy, Cisco Systems CEO and chairman John Chambers, Genentech chairman and former chief executive Art Levinson, and Steve Westly, managing partner and founder of The Westly Group.

Despite the rock star cast of the attendees list, the group is collectively keeping mum on what went down at the meeting. When asked about the meeting by a Twitter employee, Dick Costolo tweeted only that he was in a part of the Bay Area where "tweets can't get in or out." 

Representatives from Yahoo, Google, Facebook, and Twitter declined to comment. 

Image source: washingtonpost.com