Before he publicly disavowed his Republican party membership, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was treated to an intimate dinner last Sunday with a tight group of high tech luminaries, part of a test-the-waters trip to Silicon Valley.

Among the dinner guests at the home of technology financier Sandy Robertson, a partner at Francisco Partners, were Google's Sergey Brin and his new wife Anne Wojcicki; Marc Benioff, chief executive at Salesforce.com; and Ed Penhoet, president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and co-founder of biotech company Chiron Corp.

The co-founder of another company, Jerry Yang of Yahoo, was also invited but declined to attend. He took over the C.E.O. spot at Yahoo last week when Terry Semel disavowed that job.

Bloomberg told dinner guests that he'd rather be known as a "moderate" than as an "independent."

The next day Bloomberg visited Google headquarters before traveling south to Los Angeles for a joint appearance with California's politically moderate Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

by Russ Mitchell