Every parent knows the biological intoxication — at least for a few weeks — of having your first child. That, plus living in California and being a technology idealist, may account for the somewhat sappy tone of Mark Zuckerberg’s letter this week to his new daughter Max, in which he announced that he will devote 99 per cent of his $45bn wealth to good works.

父母在迎来第一个宝宝时都会感受到一种生物性的兴奋——至少头几个星期如此。这种初为人父的喜悦，加上住在加利福尼亚州，再加上身为一个科技理想主义者，或许能解释为什么马克丠克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)会在本周给他才出生的女儿麦克斯(Max)写下那封充满温情的信，在信中他宣布将把自己450亿美元的财富捐出99%给慈善事业。

The Facebook founder’s pledge, with his wife Priscilla Chan, of “a moral responsibility to all children in the next generation” is no doubt deeply felt and genuine. It also has a coolly rational outcome — that he can demerge two things that have been mixed up in a single corporate structure: Facebook and philanthropy. The “social mission” he declared at Facebook when it went public in 2012 now has another outlet.

这位Facebook创始人与他的妻子普莉希拉陈(Priscilla Chan)许诺要“对下一代所有孩子肩负起道义上的责任”，夫妻二人这份承诺无疑是由衷和真情实意的。他们的承诺还会带来一个理性的结果，扎克伯格可以将一直混合在一个企业架构里的两件事——Facebook和慈善事业分离开来。2012年Facebook上市时，扎克伯格在Facebook上宣称的“社会使命”现在有了另一个实现途径。

Warren Buffett has no higher social purpose for Berkshire Hathaway than achieving strong returns for shareholders; nor did Bill Gates for Microsoft when he was running it. The $41bn Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to which Mr Buffett has promised to donate much of his wealth, is their main vehicle for venture philanthropy, impact investing, or call it what you will. Like Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google’s founders, Mr Zuckerberg has until now combined running a corporation, investing in offbeat ideas and making the world a better place. His letter to investors in Facebook’s initial public offering was more sober than this week’s missive but shared some of the same idealism, with its talk of creating “more direct empowerment of people”.

沃伦巴菲特(Warren Buffett)对伯克希尔哈撒韦公司(Berkshire Hathaway)抱有强烈的社会目的，但他同样强烈地想为股东实现丰厚回报。比尔盖茨(Bill Gates)在执掌微软(Microsoft)期间也是如此。他们进行公益创投或影响力投资（或随便你怎么叫）的主要工具是比尔及梅琳达盖茨基金会(Bill-Melinda Gates Foundation)，该基金会拥有多达410亿美元资金，巴菲特也承诺要将大部分财产捐赠给这个基金会。扎克伯克此前也与谷歌(Google)创始人谢尔盖布林(Sergey Brin)和拉里椠奇(Larry Page)一样，将经营企业、投资另类创意以及让世界变得更美好的抱负混合在一起。他在Facebook首次公开发行(IPO)时给投资者的信比本周给女儿的这封信更严肃冷静，但两封信在理想主义方面有一些共同之处，前一封中谈到要“让民众享有更直接的权力”。

Mr Page unveiled his unbundling in August by placing Google under Alphabet, a holding company that will take “moonshot” bets on new ventures such as high-altitude balloons to spread internet access to poor countries and remote areas. They are long-term investments of the kind Mr Zuckerberg’s new venture can make, although Alphabet is not philanthropic.

佩奇在8月公布了他的分拆计划，将谷歌纳入控股公司Alphabet旗下，后者将把对“登月”计划的投资延伸到新的风险项目上，比如发射高空气球向贫穷国家及偏远地区提供互联网接入服务。扎克伯格的新公司想做的可能也正是这类长期投资项目，虽然Alphabet不是慈善机构。

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — the quaint title for their joint venture, which will seek profits as well as making donations — goes a step further. The Chan-Zuckerbergs will attempt to “advance human potential” and promote social equality with measures that will include “long-term investments over 25, 50 or even 100 years”.

“陈-扎克伯格行动”(Chan Zuckerberg Initiative)——他们为这一联合经营公司起了个古朴的名字——则更进了一步，该公司在进行捐赠的同时也会追求利润。陈-扎克伯格行动将尝试“提高人类潜能”，促进社会平等，其手段包括进行“长达25年、50年甚至100年的长期投资”。

This is a simpler way to aim at such outcomes than including them as an ancillary target for a company that is focused on other things, whether social networking or search. An ambitious ethical stance is bound to make investors uneasy because they do not know what it involves — does linking communities mean manufacturing mobile phones or drilling a tunnel through the centre of the earth? Facebook’s mission will no doubt stay in place but this takes the pressure off. Mr Zuckerberg has been wooing China — learning the language and making frequent visits — although his IPO letter included a call for “more accountability for officials,” which probably goes down badly there. Dividing Zuckerberg the chief executive from Zuckerberg the political idealist may help.

对于一间专营其他业务（无论是社交网络还是搜索引擎），但想实现上述目标的公司来说，比起将这些目标列为公司的附带目标，这是一种更简单的办法。在道德上摆出雄心勃勃的姿态必定会让投资者感到不安，因为他们不知道这代表着什么，使人们互联是意味着制造手机呢，还是在地球中心打通一条隧道？Facebook的使命无疑不会改变，但这样做能消除压力。扎克伯格一直在争取中国市场，包括学习中文，频繁访华等，但他在IPO公开信中所呼吁的“官员应肩负起更多责任”，在那儿可能不会引起多大波澜。如果扎克伯格能将他的首席执行官身份和政治理想主义者身份分割开来，可能会有帮助。

While separating public company from private philanthropy brings greater clarity and freedom of manoeuvre to both, it does not make the latter either simple or cheap. Mr Zuckerberg’s aside to his daughter that he knows $45bn “is a small contribution” to changing the world reads like a billionaire’s false humility, but he is right.

将上市公司与私人慈善事业分离，可以为二者带来更大的清晰度以及自由运作空间，而且并不会令后者变得更简单或者更廉价。扎克伯格在对女儿的温情告白中说他知道450亿美元对改变世界来说“只是一笔小小的捐款”，这话听来好像一个亿万富翁的假谦虚，但他说得没错。

In some ways, Mr Zuckerberg is following Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate, who founded a network of 1,700 public libraries in the US. Carnegie argued in his essay, “The Gospel of Wealth” (1889), that industrialists should “busy themselves in organising benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will derive lasting advantage,” rather than leaving their money to their children.

在某些方面，扎克伯格正在效仿钢铁大王安德鲁愠蕓基(Andrew Carnegie)，后者在美国建立了1700家公共图书馆。卡内基在《财富的福音》(The Gospel of Wealth, 1889年)一文中写道，实业家应该“让自己忙于组织慈善活动，让广大同胞都能从中获得持久的优势”，而非将财富留给自己的孩子。

The Chan-Zuckerbergs’ worries about inequality mirror those of Carnegie, who observed “the contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the labourer” in the age of US industrialisation. He concluded of capitalism: “It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race.”

扎克伯格夫妇对不平等的担忧与卡内基类似，后者看到的是美国工业化时代“百万富翁的豪宅与工人陋室之间的反差”。他对资本主义的结论是：“资本主义就在我们身边：我们无法逃避；还没有找到任何替代模式；虽然这种法则有时可能对个人显得残酷，但它对整个民族而言是最好的。”

They have set themselves a more complex task than Carnegie faced a century ago — namely, to find innovative ways of addressing intractable global issues. Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, wrote recently that Carnegie’s wealth was “a pittance in comparison with the world’s trillions of dollars of needs for food and housing, education, infrastructure and healthcare” (even if the foundation bearing his name is still making inroads into them).

扎克伯格夫妇为自己设定的任务比卡内基一个世纪前所面临的更加复杂——找到创新的方式解决难以应对的全球性问题。福特基金会(Ford Foundation)主席达伦茠克(Darren Walker)最近写道：卡内基的财富“与全世界对食物、住房、教育、基础设施及医疗保健的巨大需求相比只是杯水车薪”（即使以他的名字命名的基金会仍在为此进行努力）。

Solving what Mr Zuckerberg tells Max will be “the biggest opportunities and problems your generation will face” is another order of challenge to managing Facebook. “The new generation of philanthropists wants to believe there is a clever ‘hack’ for every problem,” Sean Parker, the entrepreneur and former Facebook executive, wrote in June. For some problems, there is not.

解决扎克伯格对女儿麦克斯所说的“你们这代人面临的最大机遇与问题”是有别于管理Facebook的另一层次的挑战。“新一代的慈善家愿意相信，每一个问题都有一种聪明的‘破解办法’，”Facebook前高管、创业家肖恩帕克(Sean Parker)6月时写道。对一些问题而言，没有这样的办法。

Mr Zuckerberg has clearly learnt lessons from his $100m donation in 2010 to support reform of New Jersey schools, which soon ran into difficulty. Changing societies requires more time, more money and greater willingness to suffer frustration than launching a new product. It is hard enough for one organisation to do one, let alone both.

2010年，扎克伯格为支持新泽西州的学校改革捐赠了1亿美元，但改革很快陷入困境。很显然，他已经从中吸取教训。比起推出新产品，要改变社会，需要更多时间、更多资金以及更大的承受挫折的意愿。对一个组织而言，做其中任一件事都已相当艰难，更遑论两件了。

When Max grows up, her mother and father can teach her about that.

麦克斯长大后，父母可以向她传授这方面的经验。