President Obama passed through Venice yesterday stopping for a surprise visit to state Senator Ted Lieu's campaign office on Lincoln Blvd. and Vernon.

While en route to a fundraiser bash at Gwyneth Paltrow's home in Brentwood, the motorcade stopped traffic from Rose to Lake as Obama stepped out of his SUV, waved to a small gathering of local spectators in front of the Fox Mall, and stepped inside to quickly visit Lieu, who is running for Congress in the Nov. 4 election, and to thank the campaign volunteers.

We caught a very grainy, super-zoomed wave from Obama before his presidential pop-in to Lieu's office. (That's him above in the blue shirt.)

During his visit to L.A., Obama hailed the "millennial" generation as a driving force behind the country's economic recovery. He visited Santa Monica's Cross Campus, a shared workspace for creative professionals and budding entrepreneurs on Colorado Ave, and took part in a roundtable discussion where about 100 local tech professionals were invited to attend. 

"I know that there's a few of us here who are only young at heart, but a lot of you are part of the millennial generation that's going to change how we do things," Obama said after touring Cross Campus, according to NBC LA.

"Today more of our young people are earning a college degree than ever before," he said. "More and more children of low-income parents are enrolling in college and earning their shot at the American Dream.

"Along with higher education levels, millennials have a lower gender pay gap than other generations, and we're working to close that gap even further. And what we're seeing here is the way that technology is changing not just how you do business, not just how you buy products, but also how you interact, how you organize politically, how you get involved in the community and how you solve problems.