In Forbes’s blog today I saw a photo that could mean a beginning of something profound. It was none other than a picture of the Barack Obama dining with the Kings & Queens Silicon Valley last Thursday night. The fact that this picture was published on the White House’s Flickr page was a proof that it was intentionally done by Obama’s New Media team, but for what reasons, I can only begin to imagine.
Obama with Technology Business Leaders at a dinner in Woodside, California, Feb. 17, 2011
Casting aside the “No Idea” peeps seated at this infamous “rectangular table”, I will attempt to show you the enormous assessment of the wealth and assets of each of these people, and the total value at the end of it all simply out of pure curiousity.
Starting with Barack Obama, the President of the United States of America himself!
Barak Obama
44th President of the United States of America
Net worth: USD 10.1 million (2011)
Source: http://exploredia.com/richest-politicians-in-the-world/
Steve Westly
Managing Partner at The Westly Group
Net worth: California Campaign Co-chair for Obama for America and also as a member of Obama for America’s national finance committee. Nuff’ said.
Steve Jobs
CEO and Chairman of Apple Inc.
Net worth: USD 5.5 billion (2010)
Ranked 136th richest person in the world
Eric Schmidt
Ex Google CEO (2011)
Net worth: USD 5.45 billion (2010)
Ranked 117th richest person in the world
John Chambers
CEO of Cisco Systems, Inc
Net worth: USD 1 billion (2009)
Arthur D. Levinson
Co-lead Director in Apple, Inc
Compensation from Director of Apple in 2010 alone: USD 849,583.00
John Doerr
venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins
Net worth: USD 1.7 billion (2010)
Ranked 582nd richest person in the world
Larry Ellison
CEO of Oracle Corporation
Net worth: USD 27 billion (2010)
Ranked 6th richest person in the world
Reed Hastings
CEO of Netflix
Director in Microsoft Corporations
Net worth: More than USD 3.2 million (2010)
John Hennessy
10th President of Stanford University
Also, Director of Cisco Systems AND Lead Independent Director in Google
Compensation from Cisco Systems in 2010 alone: USD 331,000.00
Carol Bartz
Director, President and CEO of Yahoo!
Also, Lead Independent Director in Cisco Systems
Net worth: Around USD 48 million (2010)
Dick Costolo
CEO of Twitter
Net worth: Unknown
And finally… the youngest billionaire ever born at 1984 (that’s MY age!)
Mark Zuckerberg
CEO of Facebook
Net worth: USD 12.5 billion (2011)
If I just simply summed it all up into one figure, the total networth of these “knights of the round table” would be…
USD $53.2 billion
That’s just a wee bit more than no #2 richest man in the world, Bill Gates (who’s missing in this picture, hmm) – he’s worth USD 53 billion dollars.
As a comparison, this is what USD 53.2 billion dollars can do for you (source: Richest Countries in the world):
- buy up Costa Rica, which is worth $49,730,000,000 ie USD 49.7 billion dollars
- buy up two Bahrains, which is worth USD 26.7 billion dollars (and quite possibly a way to stop the worrying state of affairs there…)
- buy 17.7 billion Big Macs from McDonalds (worth $3 each)
It is amazing what this meet up might entail, so I for one am excited to find that out. The powers of the Government, Tech billionaires and some of the most powerful people combined must surely be a moment of epic proportion.
How I wish I could say the same for Malaysia… oh wait, that’s what PEMANDU is for, on somewhat a lower scale lah. Check out what they do, and do follow both @GTP_Roadmap and @ETP_Roadmap on Twitter to see constant improvement beneficial to us, the Rakyat. That’s all I care about, really 
Quite possibly the best transcript ever, by Fred_Zanford!
Transcript of Obama tech meeting in Silicon Valley February 17, 2011
John Doerr: Hi everybody, thanks for coming. I just wanted to start out and remind everybody here that you all work for me.
All: Understood
Obama: Thanks John, we all know who’s in charge, but I need you folks to do something for me. I’ve got to figure out how to turn this economy around by 2012. Or you’re all going to be listening to stories about Moose hunting the next time you want to meet with the President.
John Chambers: Don’t look at me. I voted for the old guy last time. Didn’t think it would turn out this way.
Steve Westly: But I want to tell you about my approach to business, based upon my eBay experience
Doerr: Yes Steve, we all know it’s better to be lucky than good, but that’s not going to turn the economy around by 2012
Eric Schmidt: Look, these guys don’t know what they’re talking about. What we need to do is open source government. Instead of hiring case workers to manage welfare and unemployment offices, let’s just ask users to submit ideas about how these underutilized resources can be used better. For example, let’s sell advertising on the backs of shirts of welfare moms and the unemployed, and then have them pick up trash on the freeways.
Obama: Hmm, I don’t know Eric…
Dick Costolo: @Woodside mansion. Pasta delicious!
Schmidt: OK. Another idea. Instead trying to figure this out ourselves, let’s get on an advisory board of a country that’s working well, say, like Sweden. We listen to their ideas, copy them, and then give the ideas away for free. And we sell advertising on the backs of shirts of government workers.
Steve Jobs: Yes, Schmitty, I know that’s how it works for you. But I think we really need to revolutionize the way this country works. Like what if we combine the prescription drug program, FEMA, and the National Endowment for the Arts, into one thing. We’ll call it the iPFArt. Yes, that’s it…
Carol Bartz: $#@! You boys always think you know the answer. What the country needs is tough love. Let’s cut, cut, cut back the federal employees until we have one thing left that works. Who says we need to grow the economy anyhow? This whole growth thing is over-rated. Why, while I was CEO of Autodesk, for the first 10 years, I turned it from a billion dollar company into a billion dollar company. Nobody complained. They just learned to accept the status quo. That’s what this country needs. To just accept it!
Dick Costolo: cant believe i missed the office 2nite. steve carrell ROCKS!
Larry Ellison: Barack. The problem is you are measuring the economy with someone else’s numbers. Instead you should be thinking like Kirk and the Kobayashi Maru. If you don’t like the rules of the game, the change the rules. Instead of publishing numbers about GDP, you need to be measuring the economy with different metrics—how many new jobs there are in bankruptcy law, increases in yacht sales, whatever!
Reed Hastings: I think we need to make army uniforms bright red. It must be hard for you to find all those soldiers. Why not make them wear red so we know what side they are on.
Mark Zuckerberg: Seriously, you guys are wasting my time. I’m sitting here listening to you, while back at the Facebook offices, my colleagues are inventing things that no one in this room will ever be capable of. Look, Barack, if you want to cut the deficit, run all the government’s IT through Facebook. All your employees are spending a couple of hours per day at work using Facebook already, why not transfer all the government functions into Facebook apps, so that that government workers can be more efficient doing whatever it is they do, instead of having to hit the “boss” button to hide Facebook every time they hear footsteps.
And if you don’t like my idea, %*@! It. Look, Tunisia and Egypt were just beta for us at Facebook. We can overthrow your government in a few days. All I have to do is push a button and I’ve got 5 million people protesting on the Mall by Saturday.
Obama: Right, got it. All government functions on Facebook. But only if you can get Russia to do the same.
Zuckerberg: Don’t be silly. I Skyped with Putin this morning. It’s a done deal.
@spinzer Holy cow! If a bomb were to land there………. Woe unto us.
what’s for dinner ?
Very detail indeed! Awesome Chris!