US President Barack Obama met with America's tech elite yesterday evening in order to talk about research spending and technology exports, amongst other hot topics. The overall aim of the meeting was for the small group to find new ways the government and private sector can work together to give the US economy a boost.

Earlier this month, in a speech to business leaders, Obama vowed to revamp the corporate tax code, expand the economy, and make the government run more efficiently, with the private sector's help. The CEOs and Obama also discussed ways to encourage kids to study math, science, and engineering.

The executives who attended the dinner were as follows:

  • Carol Bartz, President and CEO of Yahoo!
  • John Chambers, CEO and Chairman of Cisco Systems
  • Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter
  • Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle
  • Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix
  • John Hennessy, President of Stanford University
  • Art Levinson, Chairman and former CEO of Genentech
  • Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple
  • Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google
  • Steve Westly, Managing Partner and Founder of The Westly Group
  • Mark Zuckerberg, President and CEO of Facebook

The White House posted the following images and captions:

President Barack Obama talks with Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg before a dinner with Technology Business Leaders in Woodside, California, Feb. 17, 2011. Also pictured, left to right, are Carol Bartz, Yahoo! President and CEO; Art Levinson, Genentech Chairman and former CEO; Steve Westly, Founder and Managing Partner, The Westly Group; and Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman and CEO of Google.
President Barack Obama joins a toast with Technology Business Leaders at a dinner in Woodside, California, Feb. 17, 2011.

Talk about history in the making! We would have given quite a bit of our contributions to the US economy in order to have overheard the discussions at the little shindig.