Mark Zuckerberg·2015年12月1日

 

Dear Max,

Your mother andI don't yet have the words to describe the hope you give us for the future.Your new life is full of promise, and we hope you will be happy and healthy soyou can explore it fully. You've already given us a reason to reflect on theworld we hope you live in.

Like allparents, we want you to grow up in a world better than ours today.

While headlinesoften focus on what's wrong, in many ways the world is getting better. Healthis improving. Poverty is shrinking. Knowledge is growing. People areconnecting. Technological progress in every field means your life should bedramatically better than ours today.

We will do our partto make this happen, not only because we love you, but also because we have amoral responsibility to all children in the next generation.

We believe alllives have equal value, and that includes the many more people who will live infuture generations than live today. Our society has an obligation to invest nowto improve the lives of all those coming into this world, not just thosealready here.

But right now,we don't always collectively direct our resources at the biggest opportunitiesand problems your generation will face.

Considerdisease. Today we spend about 50 times more as a society treating people whoare sick than we invest in research so you won't get sick in the first place.

Medicine hasonly been a real science for less than 100 years, and we've already seencomplete cures for some diseases and good progress for others. As technologyaccelerates, we have a real shot at preventing, curing or managing all or mostof the rest in the next 100 years.

Today, mostpeople die from five things -- heart disease, cancer, stroke, neurodegenerativeand infectious diseases -- and we can make faster progress on these and otherproblems.

Once werecognize that your generation and your children's generation may not have tosuffer from disease, we collectively have a responsibility to tilt ourinvestments a bit more towards the future to make this reality. Your mother andI want to do our part.

Curing diseasewill take time. Over short periods of five or ten years, it may not seem likewe're making much of a difference. But over the long term, seeds planted nowwill grow, and one day, you or your children will see what we can only imagine:a world without suffering from disease.

There are so manyopportunities just like this. If society focuses more of its energy on thesegreat challenges, we will leave your generation a much better world.

• • •

Our hopes foryour generation focus on two ideas: advancing human potential and promotingequality.

Advancing humanpotential is about pushing the boundaries on how great a human life can be.

Can you learnand experience 100 times more than we do today?

Can ourgeneration cure disease so you live much longer and healthier lives?

Can we connectthe world so you have access to every idea, person and opportunity?

Can we harnessmore clean energy so you can invent things we can't conceive of today whileprotecting the environment?

Can we cultivateentrepreneurship so you can build any business and solve any challenge to growpeace and prosperity?

Promotingequality is about making sure everyone has access to these opportunities --regardless of the nation, families or circumstances they are born into.

Our society mustdo this not only for justice or charity, but for the greatness of humanprogress.

Today we arerobbed of the potential so many have to offer. The only way to achieve our fullpotential is to channel the talents, ideas and contributions of every person inthe world.

Can ourgeneration eliminate poverty and hunger?

Can we provideeveryone with basic healthcare?

Can we buildinclusive and welcoming communities?

Can we nurturepeaceful and understanding relationships between people of all nations?

Can we trulyempower everyone -- women, children, underrepresented minorities, immigrantsand the unconnected?

If ourgeneration makes the right investments, the answer to each of these questionscan be yes -- and hopefully within your lifetime.

• • •

This mission --advancing human potential and promoting equality -- will require a new approachfor all working towards these goals.

We must makelong term investments over 25, 50 or even 100 years. The greatestchallenges require very long time horizons and cannot be solved by short termthinking.

We must engagedirectly with the people we serve. We can't empower people if we don'tunderstand the needs and desires of their communities.

We must buildtechnology to make change. Many institutions invest money in thesechallenges, but most progress comes from productivity gains through innovation.

We mustparticipate in policy and advocacy to shape debates. Manyinstitutions are unwilling to do this, but progress must be supported bymovements to be sustainable.

We must back thestrongest and most independent leaders in each field. Partnering withexperts is more effective for the mission than trying to lead effortsourselves.

We must takerisks today to learn lessons for tomorrow. We're early inour learning and many things we try won't work, but we'll listen and learn andkeep improving.

• • •

Our experiencewith personalized learning, internet access, and community education and healthhas shaped our philosophy.

Our generationgrew up in classrooms where we all learned the same things at the same paceregardless of our interests or needs.

Your generationwill set goals for what you want to become -- like an engineer, health worker,writer or community leader. You'll have technology that understands how youlearn best and where you need to focus. You'll advance quickly in subjects thatinterest you most, and get as much help as you need in your most challengingareas. You'll explore topics that aren't even offered in schools today. Yourteachers will also have better tools and data to help you achieve your goals.

Even better,students around the world will be able to use personalized learning tools overthe internet, even if they don't live near good schools. Of course it will takemore than technology to give everyone a fair start in life, but personalizedlearning can be one scalable way to give all children a better education andmore equal opportunity.

We're startingto build this technology now, and the results are already promising. Not onlydo students perform better on tests, but they gain the skills and confidence tolearn anything they want. And this journey is just beginning. The technologyand teaching will rapidly improve every year you're in school.

Your mother andI have both taught students and we've seen what it takes to make this work. Itwill take working with the strongest leaders in education to help schoolsaround the world adopt personalized learning. It will take engaging withcommunities, which is why we're starting in our San Francisco Bay Areacommunity. It will take building new technology and trying new ideas. And itwill take making mistakes and learning many lessons before achieving thesegoals.

But once weunderstand the world we can create for your generation, we have aresponsibility as a society to focus our investments on the future to make thisreality.

Together, we cando this. And when we do, personalized learning will not only help students ingood schools, it will help provide more equal opportunity to anyone with aninternet connection.

• • •

Many of thegreatest opportunities for your generation will come from giving everyoneaccess to the internet.

People oftenthink of the internet as just for entertainment or communication. But for themajority of people in the world, the internet can be a lifeline.

It provideseducation if you don't live near a good school. It provides health informationon how to avoid diseases or raise healthy children if you don't live near adoctor. It provides financial services if you don't live near a bank. Itprovides access to jobs and opportunities if you don't live in a good economy.

The internet isso important that for every 10 people who gain internet access, about oneperson is lifted out of poverty and about one new job is created.

Yet still morethan half of the world's population -- more than 4 billion people -- don't haveaccess to the internet.

If ourgeneration connects them, we can lift hundreds of millions of people out ofpoverty. We can also help hundreds of millions of children get an education andsave millions of lives by helping people avoid disease.

This is anotherlong term effort that can be advanced by technology and partnership. It willtake inventing new technology to make the internet more affordable and bringaccess to unconnected areas. It will take partnering with governments, non-profitsand companies. It will take engaging with communities to understand what theyneed. Good people will have different views on the best path forward, and wewill try many efforts before we succeed.

But together wecan succeed and create a more equal world.

• • •

Technology can'tsolve problems by itself. Building a better world starts with building strongand healthy communities.

Children havethe best opportunities when they can learn. And they learn best when they'rehealthy.

Health startsearly -- with loving family, good nutrition and a safe, stable environment.

Children whoface traumatic experiences early in life often develop less healthy minds andbodies. Studies show physical changes in brain development leading to lowercognitive ability.

Your mother is adoctor and educator, and she has seen this firsthand.

If you have anunhealthy childhood, it's difficult to reach your full potential.

If you have towonder whether you'll have food or rent, or worry about abuse or crime, thenit's difficult to reach your full potential.

If you fearyou'll go to prison rather than college because of the color of your skin, orthat your family will be deported because of your legal status, or that you maybe a victim of violence because of your religion, sexual orientation or genderidentity, then it's difficult to reach your full potential.

We needinstitutions that understand these issues are all connected. That's thephilosophy of the new type of school your mother is building.

By partneringwith schools, health centers, parent groups and local governments, and byensuring all children are well fed and cared for starting young, we can startto treat these inequities as connected. Only then can we collectively start togive everyone an equal opportunity.

It will takemany years to fully develop this model. But it's another example of howadvancing human potential and promoting equality are tightly linked. If we wanteither, we must first build inclusive and healthy communities.

• • •

For your generationto live in a better world, there is so much more our generation can do.

Today yourmother and I are committing to spend our lives doing our small part to helpsolve these challenges. I will continue to serve as Facebook's CEO for many,many years to come, but these issues are too important to wait until you or weare older to begin this work. By starting at a young age, we hope to seecompounding benefits throughout our lives.

As you begin thenext generation of the Chan Zuckerberg family, we also begin the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to join peopleacross the world to advance human potential and promote equality for allchildren in the next generation. Our initial areas of focus will be personalizedlearning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.

We will give 99%of our Facebook shares -- currently about $45 billion -- during our lives toadvance this mission. We know this is a small contribution compared to all theresources and talents of those already working on these issues. But we want todo what we can, working alongside many others.

We'll share moredetails in the coming months once we settle into our new family rhythm andreturn from our maternity and paternity leaves. We understand you'll have manyquestions about why and how we're doing this.

As we becomeparents and enter this next chapter of our lives, we want to share our deepappreciation for everyone who makes this possible.

We can do thiswork only because we have a strong global community behind us. BuildingFacebook has created resources to improve the world for the next generation.Every member of the Facebook community is playing a part in this work.

We can makeprogress towards these opportunities only by standing on the shoulders ofexperts -- our mentors, partners and many incredible people whose contributionsbuilt these fields.

And we can onlyfocus on serving this community and this mission because we are surrounded byloving family, supportive friends and amazing colleagues. We hope you will havesuch deep and inspiring relationships in your life too.

Max, we love youand feel a great responsibility to leave the world a better place for you andall children. We wish you a life filled with the same love, hope and joy yougive us. We can't wait to see what you bring to this world.

Love,

Mom and Dad