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Mark Zuckerberg’s daughter Maxima was born last week

mark zuckerberg baby
Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, announced the birth of their daughter Max on Tuesday.

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Max, which is short for Maxima, was born the week of Thanksgiving, and weighed seven pounds, eight ounces at birth, a Facebook spokesperson told Tech Insider. 

The name choice is interesting for a number of reasons. For one, the nickname Max is gender neutral. Zuckerberg's recent announcement that he'd take two months of paternity leave was celebrated as a big win for gender equality, and could shift how companies and men approach family leave. After all, most working men don't take time off when they have a kid. As The Huffington Post's Emily Peck recently wrote, it's pretty much "unheard of" for the CEO of a company of Facebook's size to take a leave that long. 

"Studies show that when working parents take time to be with their newborns, outcomes are better for the children and families," Zuckerberg wrote when he announced he'd be taking time off. "At Facebook we offer our US employees up to 4 months of paid maternity or paternity leave which they can take throughout the year."

The name Maxima is the female equivalent of Maximus, derived from the Latin word for "greatest."

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In a lengthy post on Facebook announcing Max's birth, Zuckerberg and Chan pledged give away 99% of their Facebook stock during their lifetime. That portion is currently valued at $45 billion.

"We believe all lives have equal value, and that includes the many more people who will live in future generations than live today," they write. "Our society has an obligation to invest now to improve the lives of all those coming into this world, not just those already here."

Zuckerberg and Chan also write that they'll use their resources to try to prevent or cure major diseases like cancer, heart disease, and stroke over the next century.

"Medicine has only been a real science for less than 100 years, and we've already seen complete cures for some diseases and good progress for others," they wrote. "As technology accelerates, we have a real shot at preventing, curing or managing all or most of the rest in the next 100 years."

 

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