Mark Zuckerberg to young women: Be the nerd

SAN FRANCISCO — Mark Zuckerberg has some powerful advice for young women: Be the nerd, don't date the nerd.

The Facebook CEO was responding to a comment on his post about his personal challenge for 2016 (building an artificial intelligence system for his home). A grandmother wrote that she tells her granddaughters to "date the nerd in school" because he might turn out to be the next Mark Zuckerberg.

"Even better would be to encourage them to *be* the nerd in their school so they can be the next successful inventor," replied new dad Zuckerberg, whose daughter Max was born in November.

It was an important message from Zuckerberg, one of the world's most famous technologists. His own company is working to bring more women into an industry that has wrestled with just these sorts of stereotypes.

Major technology companies have a stark gender imbalance. Nearly seven out of 10 employees at Facebook are men and just 16% of its tech workers and 23% of senior leadership are women.

Facebook is not alone. Increasingly Facebook and other tech companies have intensified efforts to interest women in technology as a field and recruit more women in technical and non-technical ranks.

Follow USA TODAY senior technology writer Jessica Guynn@jguynn