Obama Has Meeting With California Tech Titans Over Jobs Numbers

California has a Unemployment Rate of 12.5 % and Obama is trying to rally some support by talking jobs with the titans of California Industry.

WOODSIDE, California -- President Barack Obama assembled some of the biggest names in California's high-tech corridor to confer on jobs and innovation Thursday, trying to get leaders from companies like Google and Apple behind his push to keep spending on high-tech initiatives even as Republicans are out to slash the budget.

Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs, the Apple founder and CEO who announced last month that he was taking his third medical leave, were among a dozen business leaders who met with Obama. Also attending were the heads of Twitter, Yahoo!, NetFlix and Oracle, and the president of Stanford University.

The dinner at the home of John and Ann Doerr in the San Francisco Bay area was closed to the media. Doerr, a partner at the venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, attended the meeting.

Obama wants to spend billions on clean energy, education, high-speed Internet and other programs even as his new budget proposal calls for a five-year freeze on domestic spending in certain other areas. The approach is getting a frosty reception from newly empowered Republicans on Capitol Hill, who are pushing steep cuts to a wide range of programs and balking at new spending.

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