Facebook has been in the news leading to the $16 billion blockbuster IPO. However the bigger news the next day was the wedding of Zuckerberg and Chan. The perception created by the timing of the wedding was that the internet billionaire was waiting for the social network’s flotation. A guest authorized to speak for the couple tried to dispel this perception by saying that Zuckerberg was waiting for Chan’s medical school graduation. The wedding had been planned months ahead of the D day. They were simply waiting for Chan to finish her medical school. The IPO was totally commercially driven and all decisions relating to its size and date were taken based on commercial criteria and was not influenced by the date of the wedding. Zuckerberg turned 28 on the Monday before the IPO. That day he was attending Chan’s UCSF School of Medicine commencement ceremony, and the date of the ceremony was intentionally fixed to coincide with Zuckerberg’s birth day.
Zuckerberg’s wedding triggered hectic activity on Twitter with the jesters having a field day. Mark Zuckerberg has changed his status to ‘Married’ “Priscilla Chan has changed hers to ‘Jackpot’ was the most popular joke on the social media. However Dr. Priscilla Chan does not fit the stereotypical billionaire’s wife of the many-spouses-of-Donald-Trump variety. She first met Zuckerberg in 2004 at Harvard. The two dated on and off during their undergrad years. Mark dropped out to concentrate on Facebook and Chan graduated in 2007. The 27 year old Chan is a native of Massachusetts and multilingual with fluency in English, Spanish and Cantonese. After Harvard Chan taught science at Harker School in San Jose and then joined UCSF to begin her medical studies. It was in 2010 that she moved in with Zuckerberg in his Palo Alto pad. It seems medicine was not Chan’s first choice. According to a 2005 Harvard Crimson article which is being widely circulated on social media, Zuckerberg had asked Priscilla if she would like to work for Facebook and her response was positive.
Perhaps the job offer was not made very seriously as the job at the social network never materialized. However Priscilla Chan wields a powerful influence on the network. She has specialized in pediatrics and is naturally concerned for sick children. It was during her training program that Zuckerberg added an organ donation registry tool to Facebook. He was talking about it to ABC’s Robin Roberts earlier this month. He loved the way Priscilla’s face lit up when all of a sudden an organ became available for a sick child who needed it badly. Chan has already travelled to China twice with Zuckerberg. The trips were described as vacations but they visited top Chinese web firms like Sina and Baidu triggering speculation that Facebook was trying the Chinese market through the back door as they were officially blocked in the country. Zuckerberg has been taking Mandarin lessons for a year now and claims to know enough of the language to be able to chat with Chan’s grandmother. Silicon Valley billionaire spouses are by no means gold diggers and are achievers in their own right. Even Chan would not be retiring to start a vanity project like a jewelry line but she is getting ready to start working as a pediatrician later this year.
Via: forbes
