Mark Zuckerberg open letter to daughter Max in full

The Facebook CEO announced the birth of his daughter with a new initiative to eradicate inequality

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan Zuckerberg with daughter Max

Mark Zuckerberg welcomed his first child into the world on Wednesday with a lengthy essay pledging to make the world a better place for her to live in.

Unlike most parents who share exhausted-but-overjoyed hospital bed pictures of their offspring on Facebook, Zuckerberg chose a much more dramatic way of presenting his daughter Max to his 42 million followers. His essay vows to change the world to eliminate inequality and give every child a chance at education. The Facebook CEO’s plan to do this is through philanthropy - Zuckerberg has pledged to donate 99 per cent of his shares to charity throughout his lifetime. Right now, that equates to $45 billion.

Of course, while his intentions have been praised as honourable by some, others couldn’t resist mocking the billionaire for his timing when announcing his new Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and his 2,200 word missive that began with the claim Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan almost “didn’t have the words” to describe their joy at their new arrival.

“Your mother and I have both taught students and we've seen what it takes to make this work,” he writes. “It will take working with the strongest leaders in education to help schools around the world adopt personalised learning. It will take engaging with communities, which is why we're starting in our San Francisco Bay Area community. It will take building new technology and trying new ideas. And it will take making mistakes and learning many lessons before achieving these goals.

“As you begin the next generation of the Chan Zuckerberg family, we also begin the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to join people across the world to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation. Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.”

A well-intentioned post or a great PR opportunity? Read the letter in full and decide for yourself.

Priscilla and I are so happy to welcome our daughter Max into this world!For her birth, we wrote a letter to her about...

Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, 1 December 2015

He has announced plans to take two months paternity leave from Facebook.