Nevermind the surveillance spat between the US government and the tech titans of Silicon Valley: NSA Director Mike Rogers wants to mend fences.

STANFORD, Calif. -- The director of the National Security Agency has a message for Silicon Valley: We come in peace.

Adm. Michael Rogers' attempt at rapprochement on Monday comes as tech firms have heightened efforts to repel government surveillance in the wake of spying documents leaked by Edward Snowden in June 2013. Apple and Google announced in September the latest versions of their mobile operating systems, which power the vast majority of smartphones around the world, will be encrypted by default.

"It doesn't do us any good to villainize either side of this argument," Rogers said to around 100 professors, students and reporters gathered to hear him answer questions at Stanford University. "Reasonable people can come to different conclusions about what is appropriate and not appropriate," he said.

Rogers visited the home of most of the world's dominant tech companies for the second time since taking the reins of the NSA seven months ago. He told attendees he would be in the Valley twice a year and promised potential hires that the NSA offered rewards that neither Google nor Apple could match.

"We're going to give you the opportunity to do some neat stuff you can't do anywhere else," he said. "We're going to give you responsibility early, that's part of our culture."

Rogers' appeal comes at a time of rising tension between Silicon Valley and the US government. Documents first leaked by Snowden have led to a cascading series of spying revelations that have soured relations between tech companies and government agencies.

Tech firms have beefed up their implementation of encryption to prevent agencies from spying on customers without warrants. Google and Yahoo said last summer they are working on tools to encrypt webmail, which is notoriously difficult to keep confidential.

In response, government agencies have accused leading tech firms of helping criminals and terrorists. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey last month encouraged tech companies to build back doors that would allow government agencies to still view encrypted content. Today, the new director of Britain's top spy agency, Government Communications Headquarters, wrote in the Financial Times that Internet technologies are used as "command-and-control networks of choice" for the terrorists.

Rogers took a less strident tone, acknowledging that tech firms might have good reasons for responding the way that they have. Like his counterpart at GCHQ, he called for a "broader dialogue" about what "privacy means in the digital age."

Rogers said the US conducts its surveillance operations differently from other countries such as China and Russia. These countries "use the power of the nation-state" to infiltrate privately held companies, acquire corporate secrets, and use those secrets to improve companies back home, he said.

"I don't go into foreign companies, steal intellectual data, and pass it to" American companies, he said.