While today’s tech leaders are sometimes faulted for their lack of generosity, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg appears to be bucking the trend.
Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, announced this week that they aregiving $75 million to the San Francisco General Hospital, a public institution. The hospital’s foundation said it is “believed to be the largest single private gift from individuals to a public hospital in the United States.”
The couple’s connection to the medical facility: Chan worked there for many years and the couple is renovating a home near the hospital, which will be renamed in their honor. In a statement, Chan noted, “The vital health care and trauma services this hospital provides to anyone who lives, works or travels through San Francisco.”
The gift is on top of other large ones that Zuckerberg, whose net worth is around $33 billion, has made. Most notably, in 2013, he gave nearly $1 billion (in Facebook FB, -1.51% stock) to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which funds nonprofit groups throughout the world, with a focus on those working in education, health care and the environment.
Zuckerberg ranked 10th in an Inside Philanthropy survey of the 12 most generous tech leaders—ahead of Microsoft MSFT, -0.09% co-founder Paul Allen (11) and Dell computer founder Michael Dell (12), but behind industry maverick Bill Gates (3) and Cisco CSCO, -0.07% co-founders Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner (1). The website said: “It seems as though Zuckerberg and Chan are wasting no time wading into a variety of charitable causes and are positioned to be an exceedingly generous philanthropic force for a long time to come.”
Certainly, that’s higher praise than the website gives to Amazon AMZN, +0.10%chief Jeff Bezos and Google GOOG, +0.65% co-founder Larry Page, who are included among its list of the six least-generous tech leaders. Inside Philanthropy points out that Bezos has been less charitable than his own parents and that Page may be a “big cheerleader for Google’s philanthropic and social endeavors,” but he’s kicked “the can down the road in terms of engaging in his own serious philanthropy.”
