Facebook chief pledges 99 percent of his shares after daughter’s birth

In an open letter to their newborn girl, Facebook’s co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, pledged to donate 99 percent of Zuckerberg’s company shares—currently worth $45 billion—during their lifetimes.

“Like all parents, we want you to grow up in a world better than ours today,” the letter reads. Chan and Zuckerberg continued by saying society has “an obligation to invest now” for future generations:

While headlines often focus on what’s wrong, in many ways the world is getting better. Health is improving. Poverty is shrinking. Knowledge is growing. People are connecting. Technological progress in every field means your life should be dramatically better than ours today.

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

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