President Barack Obama is meeting with top Silicon Valley CEOs Tuesday to discuss the Obamacare debacle and the impact that National Security Agency (NSA) scandals have had on high-tech companies.
Among the list of attendees are top Obama campaign fundraisers and donors like Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Yahoo! CEO and President Marissa Mayer–each of whom donated the maximum $35,800 to Obama in 2012.
Other attendees include:
- Tim Cook, Apple CEO
- Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO
- Chad Dickerson, Etsy CEO
- Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO
- Drew Houston, Dropbox CEO
- Burke Norton, Chief Legal Officer Salesforce
- Mark Pincus, Chairman Zynga
- Shervin Pishevar, Sherpa Global Co-CEO
- Brian Roberts, Comcast CEO
- Erika Rottenberg, LinkedIn VP
- Brad Smith, Microsoft VP
- Randall Stephenson, AT&T CEO
The crony alliances between Obama and the high-tech sector are well-documented. In 2012, for example, Google’s Eric Schmidt recruited, coached, and strategized technology for the Obama campaign. Businessweek reported that Schmidt is “investing millions to fund a consulting firm for businesses staffed by Obama’s former data analytics team.”
As of late, Silicon Valley has struggled to publicly distance itself from NSA revelations by leaker Edward Snowden that suggest the cozy alliances between the government and high-tech may be fueling concerns over privacy rights and civil liberties. Obama has also reached out to his Silicon Valley pals to help salvage the busted Obamacare website.
In 2012, according to New York Times statistician Nate Silver, 83% of Silicon Valley’s donations went to Obama.
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