by Professor Dennis Shaughnessy
What an amazing thing for Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan to do last week! In case you haven’t heard (if so, where have you been?), they gifted nearly all of their shares of Facebook to an LLC that will work for decades if not generations to come on solving many of the world’s most difficult problems. They have chosen to honor Max, their first born child, by giving 99% of their shares, or nearly $45 billion in today’s dollars and value, to initiatives that will make the world a better place for both her and the rest of us to live in.
Read A Letter to Our Daughter here.
Maybe now people will see Zuckerberg differently than the self-absorbed and occasionally dark character portrayed in the movie “The Social Network”. I hope he will become a model for the few tech billionaires, and the many tech millionaires, that have the resources and talent to engage rather than just give. The world needs young, talented and prosperous leaders to devote their talent to building great businesses and creating real opportunity for the billions of people around the world that didn’t win the birth lottery.
We need more wealthy tech leaders like Bill Gates and less like Steve Jobs.
With apologies to the charity sector and its leaders, I think the idea of using a for profit LLC model is very much the right way to go. While in many ways Zuckerberg and Chan are following the lead of Bill and Melinda Gates, not exactly. The Gates’ created a traditional charitable foundation as their business model for solving the world’s biggest problems, and have largely followed the path of predecessor giving giants like Andrew Carnegie and Rockefeller.
Zuckerberg and Chan may be leading the way for a new generation of “change the world” resource-rich people. Their apparent model will allow them to pursue whatever strategy and business model might work best to make real change, from poverty alleviation to increased literacy to a safer and more stable planet. When solving many problems the “for profit” approach will likely be best, for both impact and scale. Of course, when referring to for profit we mean those that are managed in an enlightened way, to use profit wisely to solve problems and serve others, rather than to maximize investor or personal enrichment.
And with some problems, a non-profit model may be the better choice, especially when a sustainable path can be found that includes mission-related income generating activity. I often suggest to students that the “3C’s” are especially suited to non-profit business models—that is, the conditions arising out of conflict and crisis and those that involve children. For the rest, consideration of a for profit, hybrid (for profit and non-profit partnership) or a non-profit with significant income generating activities or “IGAs” should always be on the planning table.
Some commentators have written that Zuckerberg and Chan are planning to change the world rather than just improve it. Reading between the lines, this line of commentary suggests that their new organization will only pursue radical new pathways and revolutionary systemic change, to make the largest investment in doing something good worthwhile. While admiring this kind of vision for broad systemic change, I hope they will also consider the power of simply “improving” the lives of billions of people that have everyday problems that can be solved with resources, like extreme poverty, inadequate health care, clean water and cooking solutions, better housing, and of course, work that pays a living wage.
And finally, one last question: where would Bill Gates be without Melinda French Gates, and now Mark Zuckerberg without Dr. Priscilla Chan? Mrs. Gates and Dr. Chan would appear to be a big part of the reason their tech giant husbands came to see the light.
It will be exciting to see in the coming years what the new Zuckerberg/Chan organization accomplishes in both changing and improving the world.
