Mark Zuckerberg And Priscilla Chan Donate $120M To Bay Area Schools

At a time when the boy kings of Silicon Valley are making the worst possible names for themselves, the original boy king, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan are setting a good example with a $120 million donation to Bay Area schools.

The couple’s donation is part of a $1.1 billion pledge to the nonprofit Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which is roughly 3.7 percent of the (more than) $27 billion he owns in Facebook stock. This latest gift will be spread over five years, and is the largest chunk of the original $1.1B pledge to date, beating out a $100 million donation made to Newark, NJ’s public school system in 2010.

“Education is incredibly expensive, and this is a drop in the bucket,” said Dr. Chan in an interview at Facebook’s HQ, reported by the WSJ. “What we are trying to do is catalyze change by exploring and promoting the development of new interventions and new models.”

In a 2012 interview with Michael Arrington, Zuckerberg talked about how much Priscilla, his then girlfriend and now wife, influenced his desire to help enhance our country’s education system. It’s a passion they share together.

Recently, we’ve seen a lot of bad behavior out of SV’s wunderkinds.

Travis Kalanick who commented on having better luck with the ladies now that he’s a successful entrepreneur. Mahbod Moghadam of Rap Genius who posted a disgusting annotation of the Elliot Rodger manifesto. And Evan Spiegel’s recently leaked emails prove that he’s kind of an ass.

Zuck has had his own scandals, but continued donations like this and the other efforts he’s involved in point to at least some evolution at work. As would befit a leader of one of the most valuable and influential companies in the world. More of this helping to make the world a better place with all the resources at their disposal and less boys behaving badly, please.