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Mark Zuckerberg & Wife Priscilla Chan discuss steering 99% of their Wealth toward their Philanthropist Initiative
BERLIN, GERMANY – FEBRUARY 25: Mark Zuckerberg (R) and Priscilla Chan arrive for the presentation of the first Axel Springer Award on February 25, 2016 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Adam Berry/Getty Images)
Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan had their first-ever joint network TV interview with “CBS this Morning” with co-host, Gayle King on Tuesday.
They spoke about steering their wealth toward their philanthropist initiative, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), and crafting the letter announcing the new initiative coming just days after the birth of their first daughter, Max.
Zuckerberg admitted to King that he was working on that letter even while his wife was in labor, which he said, “in retrospect,” was “not my best thing.”
CZI will be awarding millions of dollars to projects, such as disease elimination and improving equity in education.
They also discussed what they want to accomplish with the philanthropic endeavor.
Zuckerberg said: “There are a lot of philanthropies that try to bring capital, right? And help fund important work. But there aren’t that many that have the capability to build tools to empower different folks who are on the front lines”.
“Teachers, doctors, scientists — we don’t have the right tools to do that. And Mark has such incredible experience of building tools,” Chan added.
Gayle asked about one of the promises they gave, which is “to eliminate all diseases”, Zuckerberg replied: “Well, we’re not going to do that ourselves, but… we do think that it will be possible to cure, prevent, or be able to manage all diseases by the end of this century”.
Chan also affirmed one of those goals, to map every single cell in the human body, adding: “You would think that we already know all the cells and what they do, and the thing is, we don’t … and we need a reference.” Zuckerberg said such a biological map could serve as a “very basic building block for a lot of biological research to happen on top of that.”
Read the full interview on cbsnews.com
Watch the interview below.
.@facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have promised 99% of their personal wealth to their charitable initiative, @ChanZuckerberg.
"Setting audacious goals is important, and we need to think about beyond what's possible." https://t.co/j7TCHi1oLJ pic.twitter.com/q0vTSWKokP
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) December 3, 2019
