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.