Exclusive Behind-The-Scenes Photos Of President Obama With Steve Jobs, Reed Hastings, Mark Zuckerberg And More

The Barack Obama Presidential Library released photos of the former president with various tech executives to me on Tuesday, thanks to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests I filed last year. And the photos provide a rare peek behind the scenes of presidential politics with tech founders like Steve Jobs of Apple, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and more.

The collection even includes two never-before-seen photos of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings with President Obama in September 2015. Why is that notable? If you look closely, you can see China’s leader Xi Jinping standing nearby. Netflix doesn’t have a presence in China, though it’s not banned in the country, as many people erroneously assume. And while the state dinner for Xi was reported on extensively at the time, including the attendance of many tech executives, these are the first publicly released photos from behind the scenes with Hastings.

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Presidential records don’t become subject to the Freedom of Information Act until five years after a president leaves office. That’s why I had plenty of requests ready to send out on January 20, 2022—five years after President Obama left his post and President Donald Trump took power on January 20, 2017.

My primary research interest at the various presidential libraries across the country involves all the movies the presidents have watched while in office. I’ve written extensively on the films watched at the White House and Camp David, including screenings for Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and others. I’m even working on a book about the topic.

But I’ve also become fascinated with the meetings presidents have with tech leaders, especially when those meetings provide a look at those people in an informal setting. And these photos, all taken during President Obama’s eight years in office, give us a look behind the curtain.

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Unfortunately, some data hasn’t been released by the National Archives yet, including dates and event names for all the photos, but I’ve been assured that kind of information will be coming eventually. For now, we’ll just take what we can get thanks to the magic of the Presidential Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act.

And, to be clear, these aren’t all of the photos released on these subjects. There were hundreds. These are just what I’d call the most interesting photos of the bunch, revealing the sometimes private moments of people who are often in the spotlight. The photos include private moments in the Oval Office, in the green room at various events, and having dinner with the most powerful people in the world.

If you need more photos for your own research project into the Obama presidency, you can contact the National Archives directly.

Reed Hastings, Netflix

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Jeff Bezos, Amazon

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Steve Ballmer, Microsoft

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Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook

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Bill Gates, Microsoft

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Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway

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Eric Schmidt, Google

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Larry Ellison, Oracle

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Steve Jobs and others

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