Mark Zuckerberg’s Anti-Dating Advice Is Perfect

When his weeks-old daughter Max is old enough to understand it, Mark Zuckerberg will have some stellar advice for her. After one of his fans mentioned that she'd like her granddaughters to date nerds who could potentially become successful tech entrepreneurs, Zuckerberg responded that it'd be even better to be the nerd. Hell yes. As Mashable reports, the Facebook cofounder and CEO has had ample time during his paternity leave caring for Max to do what so many of us do with a few free moments: post photos and comments to Facebook. In a status update yesterday, Zuckerberg shared his personal challenge for 2016, to "build a simple AI to run my home and help me with my work. You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man." Ambitious, but we have a feeling he can pull it off. One admiring grandmother, Darlene Hackemer Loretto, responded with the comment "I keep telling my granddaughters to date the nerd in school, he may turn out to be a Mark Zuckerberg! Thanks for FB, I've reconnected with family and many old friends and classmates" — a well-intentioned message, but one that Zuckerberg quickly (though sweetly) shut down. "Even better would be to encourage them to *be* the nerd in their school so they can be the next successful inventor!" Zuckerberg replied, to the tune of 23,000 likes. Boom. You don't have to date the nerd; you can be the nerd you wish to see in the world. (Zuckerberg's wife, Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician who is fluent in three languages, certainly seems to have heeded that advice.) "I do encourage them [my granddaughters] to do well," Loretto clarified on her own Facebook page afterward. "I said it once to them in jest and NEVER did I think anyone would even see this, let alone get the attention it has gotten." When Zuckerberg chooses to respond to your FB post, though, you can be sure you'll get noticed.