If I understand correctly, he was there with Jobs and Zuckerberg, among others. Two generations of hard core startup OGs, I think that's pretty tough to beat.
edit: I mean, isn't the best startup guy to talk to the kind who made himself a billionaire?
In retrospect, I probably should have used a term like "typical" or "statistically representative".
The point is that there are a lot of people who are currently running startups, most of whom are not much like Jobs or Zuckerberg (these are the "average" people). There are also many people who have not started a company, but who might decide to do so if circumstances changed slightly (the marginal people) [1].
In aggregate, both of these groups have just as big an impact on the economy as the few outlier successes.
[1] One might also consider startups which failed, but only barely, as marginal.
You've done a great job presenting a compelling case against talking to successful people about how to breed more success with your comment. I am now convinced!
I had a roommate in college who slept all the time, let's make a point of getting him into the Oval asap. He's going to know way more about job creation than these ass clowns who have created billion dollar companies. </zealoftheconverted>
Straw man argument about the lazy people who sleep all day. Your smug sarcasm and attitude is also not appreciated. You sound like a child.
Facebook employs less than 3000 people. Apple less than 50k. The underemployment rate in the US is over 15%. That's millions and millions of people without work. Is John Doerr single handedly going to put all these people to work?
How about Obama talk to a group of executives from mid-cap or small-cap private and publicly traded companies run by not-any-less real business people who employ MILLIONS of people on a daily basis?
This billionaire hero worship is just so over the top and short sighted. The real economy of everyday goods and services is SO much bigger and just as important than consumer devices and social networking.
Sorry, mom. I will be super, duper serious from now on. As we all know, the internet is serious business and there is never to be any humor, ever.
> This billionaire hero worship is just so over the top and short sighted. The real economy of everyday goods and services is SO much bigger and just as important than consumer devices and social networking.
I think you're kind of missing the point about what you're going to learn from someone like Zuckerberg or Jobs.
Why do you think they have billion dollar businesses? What got them there? What chain of events transpired leading to the creation of that wealth?
In both of those cases, you have guys who figured out concrete ways where new technology could benefit people every day. They saw a future just over the horizon that could be better for everyone, then built companies to create that future. And in each case, their companies gave birth to lucrative cottage industries that let individuals and businesses make some great money.
In a country clearly destined to transition to a very different day-to-day existence than we knew in the 90's, Obama is absolutely better served to go and talk to people with visions of the future than he is talking to the guys who run the Octopus carwash chain or Panera Bread.
But don't listen to me – I'm not serious enough to be taken seriously.
edit: I mean, isn't the best startup guy to talk to the kind who made himself a billionaire?