A week after the birth of their first child, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife have vowed to give 99% of their Facebook shares to charity. “Our hopes for your generation focus on two ideas: advancing human potential and promoting equality,” wrote the co-founder and CEO of Facebook in an open letter to his newborn daughter, Max.
The letter was posted on LinkedIn today (jk, it was Facebook) and said the shares owned by Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, are currently valued at about $45 billion. To begin putting that number in perspective, that’s greater than the GDP of more than half the world’s countries.
The couple is forming a new organization called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to manage contributions over their lifetime. While no recipients have yet been named, Zuckerberg says their “initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.”
As the hoodie-wearing poster boy of Silicon Valley wealth, Zuckerberg could become a pacesetter for philanthropic giving among young billionaires. His pledge mirrors a prevailing attitude among global professionals aged 33 and younger that businesses are too fixated on their own agendas and not enough on improving society (see Mind the gaps: the 2015 Deloitte Millennial study).
Though the 31-year-old may be modeling his giving on the philanthropy of elders Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, “Zuckerberg’s charitable plans are the latest indication of a growing interest in philanthropy among Silicon Valley’s young billionaires, who unlike previous generations of business tycoons, appear eager to spread their wealth while they are still young,” says NYT today.
Zuck and Chan’s plans are wildly ambitious, and they don’t yet know how the money will be distributed. When they gave $100 million to schools in Newark, NJ, five years ago, the donation caused uproar and faced resistance. So, there’s a learning curve ahead. But it’s a curve to follow around the bend.
In this FB video, prepared before Max’s birth, Zuckerberg says, “I think we have a basic moral responsibility to tilt our investments somewhat more, as a society and as individuals.”
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