Priscilla Chan is trying to change the fate of an entire generation

you don't love the spotlight I don't love the spotlight I'm here because people told me I'd be good for czi and that is why you may not know dr. Priscilla Chan's name but we think you should the force of nature she wants to do good that woman is incredible she just cares immensely about people that's awesome yes all right salt tied in a bow at just 33 years old Priscilla Chan leads czi or the Chan Zuckerberg initiative and what may just turn out to be the biggest change agent in Silicon Valley you and Mark have committed how much of your wealth to this almost all of it 99% Mark Zuckerberg that is yes chan is Zuckerberg wife but her profile is rising and not because of whom she's married to max knows that I work at CGI okay and data works at a bookstore we've told our Facebook and she thinks fix books is a book star cz eyes goals are anything but modest advancing human potential and promoting equal opportunity while curing preventing or managing all diseases by the end of the century most people would look at that and say no way is that possible antibiotics weren't a thing until the past 80 years and that's incredible because so many lives are saved because of that so if you look forward what can we do in the next 80 years we shouldn't even be able to imagine that today backing CGI with 99% of their wealth at today's Facebook stock price that means some 61 billion dollars in assets who's the boss in the office isn't she I mean that's where she is every day you only show up with Friday so I work together on this I get the sense that she challenges you professionally she pushes personally and personally so we had this funny situation where a few years ago she found I was repeating her stories when explaining our education work about what was important in education so she turned to me one day it's just like you have to get your own stores really right it's like I'm just come on that's not really practical I'm kind of busy and she's like no I know you're gonna go do this i well i've taught him a lot of science I'm like I don't think mark knows this will someone explain it to him in a sense they've been teaching each other since they met in line for the bathroom at a Harvard frat party his friends were throwing him a party because they were worried he might get kicked out of school our real first date was about a week later okay and we had gone out to have hot chocolate and the date was going well and then he said I'm really enjoying this would you like to go watch a movie I have a take home midterm but I'd rather do that instead I was completely devastated because I was like a huge red flag this guy's not doing his homework he's not gonna amount to anything clearly I was so upset the fact that Priscilla Chan is sitting here today valedictorian pediatrician entrepreneur billionaire and mother of two is in her words a miracle my grandparents were businesspeople in Saigon the war hit they were persecuted and the only way out was to put their children on boats and send them off to sea and hopefully they find opportunity on the other side they had one beacon was like education was a pathway to a better future she was born to refugee parents in low-income housing in Quincy Massachusetts I was always the caregiver it's the firstborn mentality but first born on steroids because you're the hope and dream for a refugee family or high school now renovated was rundown and strapped for cash but her teachers there changed the trajectory of her life she's extraordinary person she's smart and she's intuitive and she's kind peter swanson taught chan AP environmental science and tennis i used to say just be sure to give back and boy you know she's giving back but i but i think she's giving back more than money he was like I heard you're good at science he's like now you will play tennis because you need to have leadership skills like you're gonna go to Harvard and he said that to you oh yeah he just was convinced that this was my destiny she landed at Harvard on a full scholarship a dream but one she never imagined would almost break her my one skill side of being smart I wasn't smart there anymore I am I know I didn't fit in and I was like oh my gosh I don't belong here I actually filled out my transfer paperwork to to leave I did oh it was so hard and so I I was ready to leave and but then a child changed her life I worked at a low-income housing project right next door to where I grew up I met a little girl she's 10 years old and I age her school counselor came to the after school program looking for her and I just like walked out to the playground in the housing project and I found her I saw that her two front teeth were broken and I was devastated I thought what happened what did I do wrong thank you to you like what did I miss something that led her to actually get hurt I still remember that moment with anguish and anger and a desire to fight so that other kids aren't like that Jan went on to teach and then to medical school as she and Zuckerberg realized the immense wealth Facebook was bringing them they rode in a post to their first daughter max like all parents we want you to grow up in a world better than ours today and from that cz I was born how has being a parent changed you it makes you realize that the important things are eliminated there's a lot of stuff that just washes away and that really working to make sure that your family is healthy and safe is so important I try to walk in the shoes of folks who don't have the opportunities that my family has champ threw herself into building CCI and its core work on education just as an opportunity which includes criminal justice reform and science so this is where the education team lives they built a tool for teachers to actually understand where kids are and their learning czi science initiative is led by Cori Bargmann here prevent or manage all diseases by the end of the century no small goals here there is no greater equalizer than health everyone deserves a shot Priscilla really I think is the heart of this organization and these motivations come from her heart the human cell Atlas it hopefully will be the next human genome project where we're able to actually sequence the trillions of cells in your body we are across the organization majority woman to work here you don't need a Harvard or Stanford degree it's a miracle I'm sitting where I am today elite Tambora served 12 years in San Quentin prison for felony assault so one day Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan Walken yeah it was a I still remember the day we visit a coding class where folks were teaching themselves how to code with no internet what did you think when you looked up I was just like oh wow is that Mark Zuckerberg and it was shocking but you know what really resonated was his genuine interest in what we were doing a chance encounter with a CGI recruiter when he was released two years ago turned into a management role helping lead their criminal justice reform work a forty five million dollar endeavor as a formerly incarcerated person I've paid my debt to society I am still an American citizen and I want to contribute so many of the people in our criminal justice system lost the opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way in our society before they were ever given a chance a chance is what Chan is also trying to give 250 of Palo Alto z-- most underprivileged children she founded the primary school an ambitious mission of combining education with full medical and mental health care for each child selling a dream is really what I was doing this is a very ambitious kind of undertaking and so she recognizes that it's going to take years in the making and she is she's in it dr. Meg McNamara led Chan's residency program and has become her mentor what do you think when you hear people say oh Priscilla Chan right Mark Zuckerberg swag yeah I would say that there is far more to Priscilla than being the wife of Mark Zuckerberg and that she is an extremely accomplished physician and at this point an entrepreneur no question in your mind she'll change this world for a lot of people no question Jan and Zuckerberg joined Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates in The Giving Pledge bowing to give away almost all of their wealth Priscilla is going to be entrusted with huge resources to change this world for the better I love the fact that it's her if we want to have an impact for our children's generation and not just for for our daughters but for for all kids it's like you need to start now this is one of the lessons that that Bill Gates taught me which was yeah you know if you want to get good at something even like philanthropy then you want to be good at in ten years you need to start now what do you think will have a more profound lasting an important impact on the world CGI or Facebook Facebook has already helped connect a lot of people and has done a lot of good see I just think has the opportunity to do so much more in terms of helping people help them create more education opportunities and if we can really play a role in empowering scientists to cure prevent and manage all diseases or even the vast majority of diseases over the next 50 years that'll just be that's going to be such an important thing for people some may question if at least in part czi is an effort to direct attention away from the obviously difficult and increasingly controversial position Facebook finds itself in including recent data hacks and its role in Russian election meddling to that Chand says quote there are a lot of things that are easier to accomplish for good PR Chan adds that the two entities are not connected saying quote CGI is not the Facebook foundation CGI has an entirely separate staff separate offices and a separate and different mission has CGI donated to any political campaigns or politicians we work in the advocacy space around issue areas that we have made commitments to and so we participate and support efforts in those areas but always in a bipartisan way we don't see ourselves as political so not directly to candidates so that said former White House senior advisor to President Obama David Plouffe leads CGI's policy and advocacy team together Chan and Zuckerberg have learned how political even charitable endeavors can become a hundred million dollar challenge grant 100 million dollars he made a famous investment of a hundred million dollars in schools in Newark what was learned from the New York investment we are now almost 7 years out from a New York investment and we're seeing really exciting results we are seeing that the high school graduation rate has gone up 18 percent it's been widely reported in many ways as a failure people wrote books and did retrospectives three or four years in this work is not work that is going to fully play out in three or four years it takes time the lesson I want us to learn here at CGI is hold yourself accountable but know that to really understand the full impact of your work you're just gonna need to be patient Priscilla Chan has lived a life with some good luck but it's exactly that luck she wants to take out of the equation for millions of children it seems incredibly unjust and a wasted opportunity in our country that people need to get lucky to have access to opportunities I'm just so inspired by the work and efforts of the the people that welcomed my family to this country I am forever in debt and willing to fight for what I feel like is an extremely American value and I just I think that's what makes this country great

Channel: CNN Business

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Id: tbM2MAepv0M

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 15 2018