Latest / The David Rubenstein Show / Anne Wojcicki

Transcript

Anne Wojcicki · The David Rubenstein Show

0:05
Speaker 1: A few years ago and Whisky start a company called
0:07
Speaker 1: twenty three and Me. That company provides anyone who uses
0:11
Speaker 1: the firm services with information about their own genetic code.
0:14
Speaker 1: With that information, people going to determine their own ancestry
0:17
Speaker 1: and they can also determine where they have potential genetic
0:19
Speaker 1: health problems in the future. I sat down with Anne
0:22
Speaker 1: and her home in Palo Alto to discuss the future
0:24
Speaker 1: of twenty three and me and how it can help
0:26
Speaker 1: solve genetic health care problems. So for those people that
0:30
Speaker 1: have not done twenty three and me yet as a
0:33
Speaker 1: test kit, tell us what twenty three and me actually is.
0:37
Speaker 1: So twenty three and Me is a company that allows
0:39
Speaker 1: you to see your own DNA, but it also helps
0:43
Speaker 1: you understand what are your genetic health risks? What is
0:46
Speaker 1: it that your potentially predisposed to something like type two diabetes,
0:50
Speaker 1: h fibrillation. But it also helps you understand your ancestry.
0:54
Speaker 1: So where are you from the world, how are you
0:57
Speaker 1: connected to other people? And we make it so shoal like.
1:00
Speaker 1: One of the big differences with twenty three and Me
1:02
Speaker 1: is like we have a it's a social platform, so
1:05
Speaker 1: you could share like you and I could share our
1:07
Speaker 1: data together, we could potentially be relatives. You can find
1:11
Speaker 1: new relatives on twenty three ME and you can also
1:13
Speaker 1: share some of your health information. So when people take
1:16
Speaker 1: this test, and I should say I took it recently,
1:19
Speaker 1: I haven't gotten the results back. I'm nervous about whether
1:21
Speaker 1: I'm going to get good or bad results. But all
1:25
Speaker 1: you do is you spit into a little tube, you
1:28
Speaker 1: mail it back to you, and then how do you
1:31
Speaker 1: get out of somebody's saliva all this information? Isn't it?
1:34
Speaker 1: It's it's amazing that it's just it's a little tube
1:37
Speaker 1: of spit. So you spit in the tube. It actually
1:39
Speaker 1: takes about ten minutes to spit um. You have cells
1:43
Speaker 1: from your cheek and you know, cells cells that come
1:46
Speaker 1: into that spit into the saliva, and you send it
1:49
Speaker 1: back to us. We um you know, take part of
1:51
Speaker 1: that sample. We extract the DNA and we run it
1:55
Speaker 1: on Jean chip. You know, it's a technology that Alumina
1:58
Speaker 1: has made and that's part of it's you know, thanks
2:01
Speaker 1: to this company. It's a very affordable test. You know,
2:04
Speaker 1: it's under two dollars if you want to get the
2:06
Speaker 1: health and the ancestry, and it takes a couple of
2:09
Speaker 1: weeks for us to turn it around, and then you
2:11
Speaker 1: have your genome. And what twenty three really has done
2:14
Speaker 1: is built all of the tools, all the interactive software tools,
2:18
Speaker 1: so that you can navigate and explore what does the
2:22
Speaker 1: genome mean for you? So when you give the results
2:25
Speaker 1: back to people, what are they typically most surprised to learn?
2:29
Speaker 1: We're first and foremost really concerned about health returning health results,
2:33
Speaker 1: and so we spend a lot of time thinking about, Okay,
2:35
Speaker 1: if I'm going to tell you your genetically high risk
2:37
Speaker 1: for Alzheimer's, how are you going to respond to that? Um,
2:41
Speaker 1: We have all kinds of additional layers of consent, We
2:43
Speaker 1: have you know, physician videos around it. But I would
2:46
Speaker 1: say what the biggest surprises for people is that they
2:50
Speaker 1: find out that they have additional family members that they
2:54
Speaker 1: did not know about, or the family members that they
2:57
Speaker 1: have they did not necessarily you know, they find out
2:59
Speaker 1: that they're not necessarily related UM or genetically related. So
3:03
Speaker 1: I would say the family connections are frankly actually become
3:07
Speaker 1: the biggest surprise for me. UM. I would say, when
3:10
Speaker 1: the other biggest questions is like, what is that definition
3:12
Speaker 1: of race? So a lot of people find out that
3:15
Speaker 1: they have African ancestry or they have Jewish ancestry, but
3:19
Speaker 1: they never knew that they had either those. So then
3:22
Speaker 1: what really is that definition of being Jewish or what's
3:24
Speaker 1: that definition of being African American? With the co discovery
3:28
Speaker 1: of DNA with James Watson and uh, he once told
3:31
Speaker 1: me that he had his human genome mapped early, one
3:34
Speaker 1: of the early people, but he said he didn't want
3:36
Speaker 1: to know if he had a predisposition to Alzheimer's, And
3:40
Speaker 1: I wonder or a lot of people have that view,
3:42
Speaker 1: which is, I'd like to know what my genes would be,
3:44
Speaker 1: but don't tell me if I have a predisposition Alzheimer's,
3:47
Speaker 1: because not much I can do about it. Is that right?
3:49
Speaker 1: I think it's it's actually I would say you have
3:51
Speaker 1: sort of two camps, and both camps feel very strongly.
3:54
Speaker 1: You have a group of people who very much want
3:56
Speaker 1: to know everything about themselves, and they don't necessarily a
4:00
Speaker 1: report like Alzheimer's doesn't necessarily have clinical utility in the
4:03
Speaker 1: capacity that you're going to have a treatment or you're
4:05
Speaker 1: going to change anything, but it has high personal utility,
4:09
Speaker 1: meaning that those people might decide they create a will
4:13
Speaker 1: they retire earlier or one of the main things that
4:17
Speaker 1: we see people do is they go and they buy
4:18
Speaker 1: long term care insurance. So what we see is that
4:21
Speaker 1: they take a personal utility and they're actually proactive with
4:24
Speaker 1: that information. Now, in the consumer world, what people like
4:27
Speaker 1: is repeat customers. And so if I did as I
4:31
Speaker 1: just did, I took a twenty three and me test.
4:33
Speaker 1: Once I get the results, how do you monetize me
4:36
Speaker 1: in the future? What are there are different things you
4:38
Speaker 1: can sell to me? Or because that's what usually companies
4:40
Speaker 1: like to do is go back to their customers and
4:42
Speaker 1: sell them something else. So what do you have interesting?
4:45
Speaker 1: You know, I could look back like if we if
4:47
Speaker 1: I ever do a retrospective on twenty three and me,
4:49
Speaker 1: was it a mistake to not have a subscription product earlier?
4:52
Speaker 1: So we do today have a subscription product. In early
4:55
Speaker 1: early stages of the subscription product, the original I ideas
5:00
Speaker 1: with twenty three me was that we'd get you in
5:02
Speaker 1: in the simplest way possible because we didn't want to
5:05
Speaker 1: overly confuse the messaging about a subscription or not. But
5:08
Speaker 1: it was just it was so unknown, like why do
5:10
Speaker 1: you even want your genetic information. So the idea was
5:14
Speaker 1: like I needed to see the market just with like
5:16
Speaker 1: my early adopters is like, just like what is this information?
5:19
Speaker 1: And make it as simple as possible. But what I've
5:22
Speaker 1: seen over the last sixteen years is that my customers
5:25
Speaker 1: are really engaged. So for example, over eighty five of
5:29
Speaker 1: our customers are consenting for research, like really high numbers
5:33
Speaker 1: of people opt into research. Over fift of my customers
5:37
Speaker 1: are coming back on a quarterly basis. So if I
5:40
Speaker 1: subscribe to one of your subscription services and I have
5:43
Speaker 1: a predisposition to disease A or be, you're likely to
5:46
Speaker 1: send me information on that from time and time. Is
5:48
Speaker 1: that what you mean? We'll potentially update that report or
5:50
Speaker 1: well potentially said you additional But the main thing we
5:53
Speaker 1: did we recently acquired a company called Lemonade Health. And
5:56
Speaker 1: the reason why we acquired Lemonade Health was two folds,
5:59
Speaker 1: like mostly to fit answer the question that you just asked.
6:02
Speaker 1: Here is like you find out your higher risk, Well,
6:04
Speaker 1: now what can you do? So first and foremost will
6:07
Speaker 1: be able to have medical protocols about how can we
6:10
Speaker 1: actually deliver genomic based care. No one has adopted genomic medicine,
6:14
Speaker 1: So how can I adopt genomic based care in a
6:17
Speaker 1: primary care setting to really help think about how do
6:20
Speaker 1: I engage, Like how do I help you be healthy? So,
6:23
Speaker 1: first and foremost we're going to like solve that question
6:25
Speaker 1: for you. Second is really about the engagement side. You
6:28
Speaker 1: find out your higher risk for heart disease, well, like
6:31
Speaker 1: an article just came out about caffeine consumption in heart
6:34
Speaker 1: disease or sleep in heart disease, I want you to
6:37
Speaker 1: update me. So the company then will start to update
6:40
Speaker 1: people to say, hey, here's the latest about what's happening.
6:43
Speaker 1: Here's things that are in your hands that you should
6:45
Speaker 1: actually start to go and think about. Now, you have
6:48
Speaker 1: a fairly distinguished family. I'd like to talk about it
6:50
Speaker 1: for a moment. It's been written about. I recall your
6:54
Speaker 1: father was a physics professor in the head of the
6:56
Speaker 1: physics department at Stanford. Your mother is a distinguished educator
7:00
Speaker 1: and wrote a book about how to raise distinguished, accomplished children.
7:04
Speaker 1: She sure did. One of your sisters is an epidemiologist
7:08
Speaker 1: at the University of California, professor. Another sister runs YouTube.
7:13
Speaker 1: And then you are the founder of twenty three and
7:15
Speaker 1: so what was it like growing up on the Stanford
7:18
Speaker 1: campus with all this talented around you. I think the
7:21
Speaker 1: best thing about how we grew up is we were
7:24
Speaker 1: surrounded by an academic culture of people who really prioritized
7:31
Speaker 1: education and learning, but also really encourage people to pursue
7:36
Speaker 1: their passions. So what I what I love about all
7:40
Speaker 1: my sisters, Like we both you know, Susan and I
7:42
Speaker 1: happened to be in higher profile roles, but everyone is
7:46
Speaker 1: pursuing something that they really love and they really enjoy doing.
7:49
Speaker 1: So I think that the best thing we all got
7:52
Speaker 1: from our parents was to pursue your passions, no matter
7:56
Speaker 1: how esoteric, or whether or not they're monetize able or
8:01
Speaker 1: if it's you know, an academic kind of pursuit. Right.
8:03
Speaker 1: So I grew up in the Stanford campus. I assume
8:05
Speaker 1: you're an all A student. Your sisters are all a's.
8:08
Speaker 1: So where did you want to go to school? In college?
8:10
Speaker 1: You know, I kind of debate. I mean, my my
8:12
Speaker 1: father went to Harvard. Like the realities, you know, things
8:15
Speaker 1: based on your parents, and my father was really lucky.
8:17
Speaker 1: He went to Harvard after he came from he came
8:20
Speaker 1: from Poland. He was in school and he went early
8:21
Speaker 1: to Harvard. Um My mom went to Berkeley, so I knew.
8:25
Speaker 1: My parents always encouraged me. They would say, you know, go,
8:28
Speaker 1: like it's important to go, it's important to have education,
8:31
Speaker 1: it's important to go to a good school. But there's
8:33
Speaker 1: a lot of good schools, and I would say today
8:36
Speaker 1: people over emphasized, like you know what, exactly what school
8:39
Speaker 1: I have to go to. There's so many great schools,
8:41
Speaker 1: and frankly, the great school finds you. Um So, I
8:43
Speaker 1: always wanted to go. I thought Harvard would be fascinating.
8:46
Speaker 1: My oldest sister she went to Harvard. Um I used
8:49
Speaker 1: to stay with her at Harvard. I just like I
8:51
Speaker 1: was fascinated by people who wore tweed and had leather patches.
8:55
Speaker 1: Um So I decided not to end up going to Harvard.
8:58
Speaker 1: I went to Yale for on weekend, and I fell
9:01
Speaker 1: in love with Yale and I'm a yalely I just
9:05
Speaker 1: loved it. Okay, And what did you study there? I
9:06
Speaker 1: studied biology. And did you want to go to medical school?
9:09
Speaker 1: I did. I thought about going to medical school. I
9:12
Speaker 1: loved research, but I wasn't Um I can't say that
9:15
Speaker 1: I was an incredibly talented researcher. I would say that
9:19
Speaker 1: detail in that precision. There was a lot of wonderful
9:22
Speaker 1: post docs in the lab who helped me get through
9:25
Speaker 1: my research. But I love the science. I love molecular biology,
9:29
Speaker 1: like it keeps me up at night that you have
9:32
Speaker 1: this incredible set of processes going on right now in
9:36
Speaker 1: your body. She went to Yale, you graduated. He decided
9:39
Speaker 1: not going to go to medical school. But what did
9:40
Speaker 1: you do? Well? I and I actually always you know,
9:42
Speaker 1: and I joke a lot. I'm on the Kaiser Permanent,
9:44
Speaker 1: a school medicine board, and I sometimes joke. I was like,
9:47
Speaker 1: at some point, I'll still go to medical school, like I,
9:49
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like the most it's the most interesting
9:53
Speaker 1: job you can have, I think, But um, but I
9:55
Speaker 1: decided not to, and very randomly I got a job.
9:59
Speaker 1: I randomly got my resume sent to the Wallenberg family
10:03
Speaker 1: in Sweden and they offered me a job. I didn't
10:06
Speaker 1: know who they were, I didn't know what it was,
10:09
Speaker 1: um and but I thought it was interesting, like it
10:11
Speaker 1: was like a one year opportunity paid me forty dollars.
10:14
Speaker 1: I thought I would never make that much money again,
10:17
Speaker 1: so I figured I would go and do it for
10:18
Speaker 1: a year. So where did you do this? So? I
10:20
Speaker 1: worked in New York for almost ten years. Um. So
10:23
Speaker 1: I started off with the Wallenberg's and then I went
10:25
Speaker 1: to a series of hedge funds afterwards. Right so, um,
10:28
Speaker 1: nothing could be higher in life than working for hedge funds. Right? No,
10:31
Speaker 1: exactly how did you feel there was a higher calling
10:34
Speaker 1: than working for a hedge fund at the point I
10:36
Speaker 1: was my my my best friend's father used to call
10:39
Speaker 1: me a leech on society. Um so, and I took
10:43
Speaker 1: up fondly. I was like, look, the reality for me
10:45
Speaker 1: is I was learning, Um, there was no better education
10:50
Speaker 1: about it was like getting a PC. Like I went
10:52
Speaker 1: to medical meetings every week. I went, I was speaking
10:55
Speaker 1: with experts every day, Like I knew the health care
10:57
Speaker 1: system so well. But I did feel after ten years,
11:01
Speaker 1: I was investing in a system that was fundamentally not
11:05
Speaker 1: really like not really the system that I wanted to
11:08
Speaker 1: be part of. And um, and then I wanted to
11:12
Speaker 1: do something. I feel like, you can't. If you're going
11:13
Speaker 1: to complain about a problem, then you should, you know,
11:17
Speaker 1: figure out how to fix it. So what year did
11:19
Speaker 1: you decide to start? Twenty three? And me, it started
11:21
Speaker 1: thinking about a lot in two thousand five, and then
11:24
Speaker 1: it was two thousand two six that we actually started.
11:28
Speaker 1: So for people who haven't paid attention to the genome world,
11:31
Speaker 1: in the year two thousand, I think it was the
11:33
Speaker 1: federal government said that two researchers, Francis Collins working at
11:38
Speaker 1: n I H and Craig Ventor, who has had a
11:40
Speaker 1: private company, had basically discovered the human genome. So that happened,
11:45
Speaker 1: and I think two thousand President Clinton said that was
11:47
Speaker 1: a tie, and they both given credit for it, leaving
11:50
Speaker 1: aside the intramural fighting that had gone on before. So
11:54
Speaker 1: it was then thought, Okay, the world is gonna be
11:55
Speaker 1: so much better now that we know that human genome.
11:58
Speaker 1: It's been mapped. There will be no more to Jesus,
12:00
Speaker 1: we can fix all diseases. But what happened for the
12:02
Speaker 1: ten years or so or fifteen years afterwards, it didn't
12:05
Speaker 1: seem like much happened. But this is that's such an
12:07
Speaker 1: interesting question, um, and this is also something that plagues me.
12:11
Speaker 1: Like Francis Collins and President Clinton at the time came
12:14
Speaker 1: out and said this human genome, like sequencing, the human
12:18
Speaker 1: genome is going to transform how we diagnose treat and
12:22
Speaker 1: prevent all human disease. So it's a huge statement about
12:26
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. And I would argue one of
12:28
Speaker 1: the biggest issues that's happened today is there has not
12:31
Speaker 1: been adoption of genetic technology. And I would say point
12:35
Speaker 1: back to again part of my dissatisfaction with the investing
12:39
Speaker 1: world is part of the reason why it has not
12:42
Speaker 1: been adopted is that a lot of genetic information is
12:44
Speaker 1: about prevention. So for instance, if I tell you are
12:49
Speaker 1: likely to have an adverse event from this this antidepressant,
12:53
Speaker 1: or your potentially higher risk for atrial fib those are
12:57
Speaker 1: not well monetized medical events. You can make a lot
13:02
Speaker 1: of money treating atro fibrillation, but you cannot make money
13:05
Speaker 1: in the absence of a disease. So, for instance, if
13:08
Speaker 1: I successfully keep you healthy to a hundred, you are
13:11
Speaker 1: not a profit center for the healthcare world. And so
13:15
Speaker 1: genetic information a lot of that potential is not really
13:19
Speaker 1: adopted in the primary care setting, in part because there's
13:23
Speaker 1: not an assilium monetization path. So you're starting to see
13:26
Speaker 1: that more in cancer, you start to see it more
13:29
Speaker 1: in pregnancy related but it has not been widely adopted
13:34
Speaker 1: I would say the second thing is that the US
13:37
Speaker 1: is far far behind countries like the UK. So the
13:41
Speaker 1: UK has an incredibly impressive program called the uk Biobank
13:45
Speaker 1: where they have half a million people who have consented,
13:47
Speaker 1: who are participating in a nationwide program and it's amazing,
13:52
Speaker 1: like everyone including twenty three me uses the data that
13:55
Speaker 1: comes out from the UK Biobank. The US has totally
13:58
Speaker 1: fallen behind. So we have a program called all of
14:02
Speaker 1: Us where we're trying to get people. It's supposed to
14:04
Speaker 1: be a million people, but the UK has already left
14:06
Speaker 1: prog us and said we have a five million person program.
14:09
Speaker 1: Now that's going to be, you know, running ahead. So
14:12
Speaker 1: the US and part there's also been a lot of
14:14
Speaker 1: politics around you know, how is this going to execute?
14:17
Speaker 1: You know, what are the ethics on it? If we
14:19
Speaker 1: want to really capture the benefit of the human genome,
14:23
Speaker 1: you need a massive I would say multiple countries that
14:26
Speaker 1: come together and have like a hundred million people who
14:28
Speaker 1: come together so you can really understand what the code is.
14:31
Speaker 1: The US is obsessed not so much with the UK,
14:34
Speaker 1: but it's with China. So it is China ahead of
14:37
Speaker 1: us in this area or not? Well, China is crushing
14:39
Speaker 1: us too, but we don't know as much about what
14:41
Speaker 1: they're actually doing. So I would say, like the one
14:45
Speaker 1: big worry that I always have is like China. China
14:48
Speaker 1: knows how to execute and they know how to lead
14:51
Speaker 1: on a program in China has made no um, no
14:54
Speaker 1: uncertain statements about their interest in genetics and that they
14:59
Speaker 1: want to be the world leader in this next the
15:01
Speaker 1: genetic revolution. So China has made huge efforts. They have
15:05
Speaker 1: huge programs, and they also have something called the Beijing
15:08
Speaker 1: Genome Institute, which is an incredibly well funded you know, um,
15:12
Speaker 1: you know, well funded with the government and a massive
15:15
Speaker 1: sequencing shop where tons and tons of discoveries are being
15:19
Speaker 1: made and there's nothing in the U s or nothing
15:21
Speaker 1: in the UK that's even comparable. As you look at
15:23
Speaker 1: the company you've created, and you look at what you've
15:25
Speaker 1: done with your life, how do you think you're having
15:27
Speaker 1: an impact on the world for the betterment of the world.
15:29
Speaker 1: I think in two ways. So one, I personally believe
15:33
Speaker 1: there's no more interesting challenge than trying to understand the
15:36
Speaker 1: code of life. And I think that twenty three is
15:40
Speaker 1: frankly the best positioned entity public or not not public
15:46
Speaker 1: or you know, for profit or nonprofit, we are by
15:50
Speaker 1: far and away the best positioned entity to solve the
15:53
Speaker 1: question as to what does the human genome mean and
15:55
Speaker 1: how can you apply it to individuals? So one, I
15:58
Speaker 1: think we are going to be the lead in deciphering
16:01
Speaker 1: the human genetic code. Second, I transform people's lives, like
16:06
Speaker 1: it's what keeps me up at night, and it's also
16:08
Speaker 1: what keeps me going. I tell someone that they're higher
16:11
Speaker 1: risk for breast cancer and that leads them to get amasectomy,
16:15
Speaker 1: and I can potentially prevent an early death, like that's amazing.
16:20
Speaker 1: Or I can reconnect to family members where they've been
16:23
Speaker 1: lost for years. Like. One thing twenty three ME does
16:26
Speaker 1: is that we generate incredibly meaningful information for individuals. By
16:32
Speaker 1: the way, all my twenty three and ME tasks I'm
16:34
Speaker 1: waiting for they get the results soon. How can I
16:36
Speaker 1: be certain that nobody will know the results other than me?
16:39
Speaker 1: How can I be sure that you're not selling the
16:40
Speaker 1: data to somebody else? So we honor the fact that, like,
16:43
Speaker 1: this is your genome and you should do with it
16:45
Speaker 1: what you want. So that means, though I'm not going
16:48
Speaker 1: to prevent you from sharing it, I'm going to give
16:51
Speaker 1: you options. So we as we ask you, do you
16:54
Speaker 1: want to opt into research and over our customers are
16:58
Speaker 1: now opting in so but it's not a default. We
17:02
Speaker 1: actually ask you like you have to elect that option.
17:05
Speaker 1: If you wanted to share your genetic information with me,
17:08
Speaker 1: you have that opportunity. But there's no defaults, like nothing
17:12
Speaker 1: is mandatory. So it's all about you being in control.
17:15
Speaker 1: So your company went public not too long ago through
17:18
Speaker 1: a spac process. I think it was a spact that
17:20
Speaker 1: was involved with Richard Branson and Virgin So any regrets
17:24
Speaker 1: to backgoing public or throw us back? No, I mean
17:27
Speaker 1: it's interesting because it's it's definitely not you know, the
17:29
Speaker 1: most positive of market times. Um, but I loved I
17:33
Speaker 1: love the process, like being being public. The process of
17:37
Speaker 1: going public is a lot of work. And so when
17:39
Speaker 1: we decided about or we at least looked at opportunities
17:42
Speaker 1: to go public, Like one of the big considerations for
17:44
Speaker 1: me was how much time is it going to take
17:46
Speaker 1: from me? And I wanted, like, I'm very much focused
17:49
Speaker 1: and very much of a CEO that like I like
17:51
Speaker 1: to operate and I like to be in the weed,
17:53
Speaker 1: like how are we executing? So I wanted to make
17:55
Speaker 1: sure I was minimizing times, like how much time is
17:58
Speaker 1: it going to take for the whole process? This back
18:00
Speaker 1: process is incredibly efficient. Um. I got incredibly lucky with
18:04
Speaker 1: Richard Branson. He's a very high quality investor. He has
18:07
Speaker 1: an incredibly educated team. He's actually invested in healthcare before.
18:11
Speaker 1: He's run you know, benefits companies. He's had a care
18:14
Speaker 1: company in the UK, so he knows this space and
18:17
Speaker 1: he was specifically looking at healthcare in a consumer space.
18:21
Speaker 1: So I'm happy with the like the process was smooth
18:24
Speaker 1: and we ended up in a really successful situation. But
18:27
Speaker 1: many tech companies have seen their prices go down, so
18:32
Speaker 1: you you have as well? I said, so does that
18:35
Speaker 1: bother you and you're saying, well, we'll come back, or
18:38
Speaker 1: what is your view generally on the the future of
18:41
Speaker 1: tech companies in terms of the valuations they once had.
18:43
Speaker 1: I think coming from Wall Street has given me a
18:46
Speaker 1: good perspective on this. You know, Wall Street is not
18:49
Speaker 1: always a reflective of true value. And I can also
18:53
Speaker 1: say that there's like no shortage of opportunities that people
18:55
Speaker 1: have missed where there's a diamond in the gem like
18:59
Speaker 1: you know, or diamond the rough where I could look
19:00
Speaker 1: at like the early days of Google, or I could
19:02
Speaker 1: look at the early days of Amazon, where people did
19:04
Speaker 1: not really understand the story, and I would put us
19:06
Speaker 1: in that bucket. A lot of people don't quite understand
19:09
Speaker 1: what we do. They either think are we ancestry. We
19:12
Speaker 1: also have a biotech side, which we haven't even talked about,
19:15
Speaker 1: is like how do you translate all this data into
19:17
Speaker 1: drug discovery? So we're complicated story. The market conditions are bad.
19:22
Speaker 1: You know, markets are efficient over time, You're largely seen
19:25
Speaker 1: as a consumer company, and consumer companies have relatively lower
19:29
Speaker 1: pe multiples tech companies and biotech companies when the market
19:33
Speaker 1: comes back and higher multiple. So can you transform your
19:35
Speaker 1: company into being a tech or biotech company by working
19:39
Speaker 1: on disease solutions as opposed to just giving people their information?
19:44
Speaker 1: We are, Um, that's actually one of the beauties. So
19:47
Speaker 1: twenty three AM when we started the company, remember I said,
19:49
Speaker 1: it was like all about like exploring the genome. And
19:52
Speaker 1: so one of the things we do is we have
19:54
Speaker 1: this huge research arm like how can I help best
19:56
Speaker 1: understand what the human genome means? And that's part of
20:00
Speaker 1: the whole process from the very beginning, is how do
20:02
Speaker 1: I consent people for research, engage them in research, learn
20:05
Speaker 1: about them, and then I have a whole analytics team
20:08
Speaker 1: and data science team that's in looking at all that
20:11
Speaker 1: data to see how do I translate it either as
20:13
Speaker 1: a consumer product back to you or actually now for
20:16
Speaker 1: research and discovery. So I have over a hundred people
20:19
Speaker 1: in a twenty three therapeutics arm of the business. We
20:22
Speaker 1: have a major collaboration with GSK. We have over fifty
20:26
Speaker 1: programs that are in development and we have to actually
20:29
Speaker 1: in clinical trials, So we're a hundred Like absolutely, thinking
20:33
Speaker 1: about how people will benefit from the human genome is
20:36
Speaker 1: about actually translating that information into theory. And GSK is
20:39
Speaker 1: a very large healthcare company medical research company. What are
20:43
Speaker 1: you doing specifically with him? Specifically it's on target identification,
20:47
Speaker 1: So we're specifically working with g s K to look
20:50
Speaker 1: at the data that twenty three is generated to see
20:53
Speaker 1: can we identify new novel drug targets. So you've built
20:58
Speaker 1: a successful company, but you might not want to run
21:00
Speaker 1: in for the next ten years, or do you? And
21:04
Speaker 1: if you didn't, would you want to go into government?
21:06
Speaker 1: At the president called you to serve our country? Would
21:08
Speaker 1: you go into government or would you start another company.
21:11
Speaker 1: I love what I do and I feel like I
21:16
Speaker 1: have this luxury with twenty three ME that um, it's
21:19
Speaker 1: and it keeps evolving. You know, we started out just
21:22
Speaker 1: as a you know, started out a consumer company. We're
21:25
Speaker 1: thick in research, we got into drug discovering two fifteen,
21:29
Speaker 1: and now we're getting to the delivery of care. So
21:33
Speaker 1: I've been really lucky with twenty three me that it's
21:35
Speaker 1: been endlessly interesting and I'm surrounded by incredibly talented, brilliant
21:42
Speaker 1: individuals where I learned from them, and what I always
21:45
Speaker 1: advised people to do is like you should keep you
21:47
Speaker 1: should take jobs where you're learning, and if you stop
21:50
Speaker 1: learning in a job, then you should quit. And like frankly,
21:52
Speaker 1: when people leave twenty three me, like I say, if
21:55
Speaker 1: you're not learning anymore, you should move on. So I'm
21:59
Speaker 1: I'm hun on committed to twenty three. That said, my
22:02
Speaker 1: other passion is other direct to consumers, Like I want
22:06
Speaker 1: to build out a true consumer empowered healthcare world, like
22:09
Speaker 1: one that is outside of the existing system. And I
22:13
Speaker 1: do there's no greater force than government and the opportunity
22:17
Speaker 1: for government, So you know, there's always ideas, like I
22:20
Speaker 1: could always do a sabbatical. You have three talented sisters too,
22:24
Speaker 1: very um accomplished parents. Your parents ever said, well, guess
22:28
Speaker 1: what your sister just did to kind of say you
22:30
Speaker 1: should work even harder and be more, even more accomplished.
22:33
Speaker 1: They put rivalries together, or you don't have that problem. No,
22:37
Speaker 1: they know my parents. My parents are lovely, and my
22:39
Speaker 1: sisters are you know, my sisters are quick to you know,
22:44
Speaker 1: make me humble. I mean, it's part of why I
22:46
Speaker 1: lived with my sisters. Like I had somebody over today,
22:49
Speaker 1: like I had we had a coffee chat that with
22:51
Speaker 1: somebody in the company today who you know? We auction
22:54
Speaker 1: this off. And my sister was laughing. She's like someone
22:56
Speaker 1: paid money to eat with you. And I was like thanks,
23:00
Speaker 1: Like that wasn't the kinds of reminders I get from
23:03
Speaker 1: the family. So your mother wrote this book about raising
23:06
Speaker 1: talented children. Do you raise your children the way she
23:09
Speaker 1: raised you? I listen. I think each generation improves upon
23:15
Speaker 1: the last generation. So I think that we have taken um.
23:19
Speaker 1: I have I haven't. I couldn't read the whole book.
23:21
Speaker 1: I read parts of the book, but I wrote part
23:23
Speaker 1: of I wrote the forward UM, and my my take
23:27
Speaker 1: on that was more to like give the reality, like
23:29
Speaker 1: the perspective from the child, Like I know my mother
23:31
Speaker 1: is telling you about how she raised us, but let
23:33
Speaker 1: me tell you about my mother, and so I look,
23:36
Speaker 1: I think it's it's my mom. My parents are incredible,
23:40
Speaker 1: Like I'm really grateful and there's lots of things that
23:42
Speaker 1: I learned from them, but I'm definitely not adopting everything
23:45
Speaker 1: they did. If your children go to Harvard and rather
23:47
Speaker 1: than yeah, we'll be okay, let's not talk about that.
23:53
Speaker 1: I mean my kids, my kids. I want my kids
23:56
Speaker 1: to My kids are so interesting and so different, you know,
23:59
Speaker 1: I want them to be passionate. That's the only thing
24:01
Speaker 1: I care about is I want them to wake up
24:03
Speaker 1: every day and say, like, I love what I'm doing.
24:06
Speaker 1: And you would you be upset if they went into
24:07
Speaker 1: something important like private equity? Are you giving me the
24:11
Speaker 1: job offer? Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews.
24:15
Speaker 1: You can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple,
24:20
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen