Forget Larry Page becoming the new chieftain at Google or Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg being crowned Time’s Man of the Year — the only two U.S. business leaders who will be sitting in Michelle Obama’s private box tonight at the State of the Union address will be Xerox’s CEO Ursula Burns and Corning’s CEO Wendell Weeks.
The high profile honors for the decades-old U.S. tech giants just happen to have been conferred in the same week both report earnings.
Corning, the 159-company which produces specialty glass for flatscreen TVs and more recently, smartphones and tablets, saw its shares rise today by almost 7 percent. While the bump probably has more to do with the company’s earnings forecast than tonight’s appearance on Capitol Hill, we’ll just have to wait and see if the special invite has the same effect on Xerox, which reports earnings early tomorrow.
The burning questions on everyone’s minds are obviously: what the execs will be wearing and, should Corning’s Weeks really take out the gorilla suit?
Corning’s first ever consumer ad campaign for its glass
