Mark Zuckerberg has opened up about his marriage to Priscilla Chan and how working with her unfolded a “whole new side” of their relationship.
The Meta CEO discussed some of the projects he’s the most passionate about while appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Thursday. During the conversation, Zuckerberg acknowledged how doing philanthropy work with Chan, who he married in 2012, ultimately and positively changed their relationship.
“It’s been really cool getting the chance to work with my wife Priscilla on this, it’s opened up a whole new side of our relationship, where it’s like we were partners and now we also get to work together,” he said.
He went on to praise his college sweetheart for everything she’s achieved in her career and noted how much they have learned from each other.
“She’s brilliant, she’s a doctor and understands so many more things about biological science than I do and I can bring this whole engineering perspective, and we learn so much from doing that together,” he continued.
Zuckerberg shared that the long-term goal of his and Chan’s work is to “create tools for the scientific community” that will either “cure, prevent, or manage all diseases”.
In 205, the couple founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organisation that offers a variety of grants to support its missions in the science and education community. Since its launch, the organisation has awarded approximately $2.9 billion in grants.
As noted on the company’s website, some of the challenges that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative aims to solve are “eradicating diseases”, “improving education,” and “addressing the needs of local communities”.
Along with working together, Zuckerberg and Chan are co-parents, as they share two daughters, Maxima, six, and August, five.
In February, the Facebook founder spoke about his relationship with his children during an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, where he detailed what he called his “goodnight things” with them.
“I basically go through with Max and Augie, what are the things that are most important in life?” he said.
According to Zuckerberg, after talking to their children about how they take care of themselves and what things they are excited about in their future, he then asks them what they did to help someone else.
“If you were to boil down my overall life philosophy in what I try to impart to my kids, those are the things that I think are really important,” he added.
