I love nerds. And I'm using that term, not to criticize, but to praise. They advance the technology of our species and pave the way for a better tomorrow. They are the ones that invent computers, tab browsing, the internet, and many other novelties that increase the productivity of the general populace and revolutionize our way of life. What would our lives be like if it weren't for nerds?
I don't even want to fathom it.
And today, on February 17th, Obama plans to meet the biggest brains in the Silicon Valley in San Francisco (a drivable distance away from where we are!). Obama, clearly, is striving to do what he encouraged America to do in the State of the Union address. America generates much of its power and uniqueness from the sheer amount of new ideas and innovations in its population, and Obama wants to capitalize on that. Obama is meeting with the heads of Google (Eric Schmidt), Apple (Steve Jobs), Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg), Yahoo, Oracle, and even Twitter to socialize about the possibility of jobs, and high-tech initiatives. In order to maximize this great country, Obama emphasizes that "targeted spending, including education initiatives aimed at producing a more sophisticated workforce, is crucial for job creation and future U.S. competitiveness with other nations."
I honestly hope that this gargantuan meeting-of-the-minds will benefit the president and his budget for the upcoming fiscal year. I'm praying that these brilliant people can muscle out a way to truly help the president at this pressing time. The support of these industrial titans would definitely help the Obama administration pass some of its spending proposals for education, energy and other programs.
I'd hate to be the Republicans if these powerful people decided to back Obama.
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9 comments:
I hope this turns out for the better! With a 14 trillion dollar debt and over a 9% unemployment rate, its essential we get people back to work or else our economy will slowly deteriorate before our eyes. I believe this meeting Obama has set up is very good in that these technological innovators can think of ways to improve the nation, if they can think of ways to connect a billion people with each other, and make phones fused with music players and game applications. Hopefully they'll think of a way to enhance the usage of these CEOs' influences on these big-named companies to promote things and ways to stop nation-wide problems like global warming, poverty, and promote things like education and ways to stimulate the economy. Like Eric said, hopefully they can help think of ways to solve our energy crisis (although I'm not sure how much that has to relate to Facebook or the iPhone) with their tech savvy brains.
I also like how Obama is following up on his promises as stated in the State of the Union Address, and instead of being overambitious, he is taking steps to actually do what he set out to do. I'm sure if he keeps following up and finishing through with his promises, will definitely be a serious contender in the next presidential election.
I'm not sure what he honestly hopes to accomplish by doing this, but I'm assuming that he has a well put together plan for this in-person meeting. Also, I think that I can guess as to why he's coming out to San Francisco for the meeting, but shouldn't these people be coming to Washington? Oh well.... I just hope that these tech companies' PR people have decided that taking some serious efforts to promote Obama's initiatives is actually important to the companies' images.
Like Jeff said, I'm not quite sure what the President plans to do in this meeting with the technologically-savvy heads and undoubtedly brilliant minds of the Bay Area. In regards to innovation, these men are truly the giants in that sect of the United States and I think that they have a lot to offer if they do end up sharing their intellect with the state or nation. However, if we're talking about education and jobs right now, I'm not sure if this is the most relevant setting to do so. Personally, I think that innovation comes from a pretty select few, so creating a lot of jobs doesn't seem like a product of this meeting, unless President Obama is investing in a person who can create many jobs. As for education, I don't know if this sends out the best of messages. Sure, these men are all very well educated and attended (note that I don't say they all graduated - for obvious reasons) some of the most prestigious universities in the United States, but there is only a very small pool of CEO's compared to the people who work at 9-5's every day, content with their jobs and receiving pay while saving up for their retirement.
This meeting is relevant not because a large number of people will become CEOs, but because they are going to be the ones hiring things and creating jobs. For every innovator that has an idea and starts a business, there are a thousand employees that need to be there to bring about that idea.
I can't say this meeting is necessarily going to be super effective, but its direction is indeed consistent with his State of the Union goals.
However, as I think about it more, is it really worth increasing spending here, considering the deficit and all? The high tech industry seems to be doing just fine without it.
This meeting seems like a token effort. I hate to say this, but I feel like Obama is running around in circles with LITTLE clear focus. A few months back he roamed around the world to make the statement "America is cool, we just want to be everyone's friend"! Then the State of the Union comes along with him screaming "We have to be number 1" and overemphasizing education for the future. I agree with my fellow classmates who say that results from this meeting seem effy.
Granted these men are geniuses and have had stunning innovations that we can't live without. But are these the men who can help truly unemployed blue-collar workers and decaying cities that dot America? All their innovations and ideas have been carried through by well-educated Americans who were anyways well-off to begin with. They are in very specific subsects of the internet, so what do they know about how to raise education standards, how to revolutionize green technology?
I don't get what Obama will do with their innovations.
I think that it's important to remember that as president of the United States, Barack Obama has to pay attention to ALL the different groups of people in the country. Maybe it's true that this meeting won't be extremely beneficial to the blue-collar workers in the decaying cities, but he has essentially spent the past two years for that group of people: the economic stimulus, for example, was meant to save the jobs of precisely these kinds of people. For the past 2 years, Obama has focused mainly on reform, and improving conditions for the middle and lower classes (health care reform, Wall Street reform, etc.) However, Obama would be lax in his duties if he failed to think about innovation as well. In his State of the Union, Obama made it clear that he now wanted to focus on the future of the country, and this is a step in that direction. Increasing spending in the technology industry can be extremely profitable as well; after all, when our economy was doing so well in the 1990's, it was due to the advances in technology and the advent of the internet. So maybe, if some analogous advances in technology occur today, it could greatly help our economy. In this increasingly technological world, we have to support the innovators and research and development companies as much as the blue-collar factories in decaying cities. Thus, in my opinion, this meeting and what it represents has the potential to bring a lot of positive things to the country.
I really do hope that something good and productive came out of this meeting because the country is in a big problem with the huge deficit that it's facing at the moment. I hope that new jobs can be created in these companies because the unemployment rate really needs to decrease. Just like Eric said, I'd hate to be the Republicans if the heads of these major industries back Obama in his plan.
I really agree. Technology is a blessing and a curse but I do feel that the bettering of our society by helping others and making life more efficiently easy is a step into the future that America needs to stay ahead and innovative!! Go nerds!
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