Zuckerberg and Chan, a pediatrician, discussed the donation in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press. It was Chan’s first significant step into the public spotlight and the couple’s premier interview together. The two met while studying at Harvard and married in their Palo Alto backyard on May 19, 2012 — the day after Facebook’s stock began publicly trading in a rocky initial public offering that now seems a distant memory. In 2010, they joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett to get the country’s richest people to donate most of their wealth.
“I’m really focused on connecting the world. That’s my main thing, and you’re primarily focused on children,” said Zuckerberg, turning to Chan. “And we’re able to do some of this work together, which is neat…There are interesting overlaps.”
Chan, 29, and Zuckerberg, 30, have made philanthropy a central theme of their life together. The two made the largest charitable gift on record for 2013. That $1.1 billion donation was on top of another $500 million the couple gave a year earlier to the Silicon Valley foundation, which helps donors allocate their gifts.
“I just think that philanthropy is a fancy way to say that you care about others and that you want to serve others. And that’s been a part of me for as long as I can remember,” said Chan, fresh from a pediatrics residency shift at the University of California, San Francisco medical center, where she works primarily with underserved, immigrant families. “(We) have this amazing opportunity it’s really important to me that we use this opportunity to continue to give back and create even more change to affect other people’s lives.”