The Genesis of 23andMe

I think the reality, that's the advice I give to young people now. The reality is, whatever you think your life is going to be at the age of 18 to 22, your life will not be that. And so in some ways, the best thing you can do is just really push yourself to keep learning. And I was really lucky because my parents were people who really didn't worry about, oh, you have to find what you want to do right away. And they were really supportive of, you should find what you're really passionate about. So I graduated. I was a biology major. I always dreamed I was like, oh, I should so want to be a doctor. I love my pediatrician. I like sick people. I love medicine. I love molecular biology. I find it so fascinating. But there was something that just didn't feel right. And so I graduated college and I was one of those people. I graduated with no job plan. So I drove cross country. I was a nanny. I nannied, actually, for a Stanford professor, John Donahue, and his wife in the law school. And my mom made me go to a job fair. And in some ways, it kind of shows how random life can be at times. But I went to this job fair and I gave my CV to someone and they took my CV and it ended up being for Montgomery Securities. And she then knew somebody, which ended up being the Wallenberg family in Sweden. And I know there's a bunch of Wallenberg buildings, and lo and behold, they interviewed me. I only took the job interview because I wanted the frequent flyer miles and as, like, a good, scrappy Stanford brat should. And then I took this job and I had no idea. I didn't even know what a balance sheet was. And here it was like, the Wallenbergs. And I met Marcus Wallenberg came out to interview me, and I was like, I didn't know who he was. I had him meet me at Printers Inc. I was in flip flops and a skirt, and I was like, you get your own bagel over there. And it was like, in some ways, life is very random. And I ended up on Wall street. And for 10 years, I was investing in healthcare companies. I didn't know anything. I. I didn't even know what Wall street was, but I knew that it was super interesting. And I was learning every single day and learning about how I had this passion for molecular biology and for me to be able to meet with these amazing CEOs who are pioneering the world. And my first project was xenotransplantation. And I would fly around the world and meet with Great academics who are trying to understand whether or not you could transplant animal organs into humans. And so at some point, I realized, like, I wasn't. Not that I wasn't learning, but I felt like the healthcare system was not reflective of my values. And I got into investing and I got into, you know, the whole business because I was learning. It was so interesting. And I love, like, the potential of, like, oh, we're all going to live better and it's going to be better, healthier lives. And then after a while, I started to realize that healthcare is this, like, amazing money machine, and it's $3 trillion. It's the largest part of our economy for a reason. There's so much money in health care. And I would have meetings with people who were CEOs who were like, oh, yeah, we're seeing margin expansion because we're really good at collecting from the uninsured. And you're like, oh, margin expansion is good, but the fact that you're squeezing poor people doesn't sound great. And so I just felt like there was this ethical debate for me. And so in some ways, 23andMe came out of this frustration that I saw that the healthcare system was not reflective of me. And I spent probably a year just shorting stocks. In your anger, I was like, I'm just going to short everything. Everything fails. It all sucks. And I sat with this one professor and we were talking about. It was obviously at the early days of Google, and that was on my mind and had sort of this discussion like, well, what if you just had the world's health information? What could you do? He's like, well, you could solve everything. I was like, well, then we should do that. And it was the beginnings of the social networks and crowdsourcing and MySpace and it was this idea, well, what if everyone. We all have a common interest in our health. You look at Livestrong and Susan G. Coleman and all these groups, people come together and they care. So why don't we just all come together with our health information? I don't need pharma and I don't really need all the specific academics. We. We can crowdsource the world's largest study and empower each of us with our information. Like, let the people rise. And why is it that your healthcare system is like, why are they all telling you what you want? No one ever asks you. And so, like, 23andMe came out of a rebellion. And in some ways, like, we've always meant to be a rebellious brand. It was always about, like, I want to change the whole system. And the beauty of Silicon Valley is that you can be totally unrealistic with your expectations of what you can do. And I really believe, I tell people in the company all the time, I'm like, we really can topple a $3 trillion industry. It's going to be amazing. Little old 23andMe, but that's what we're trying to do, start a revolution. 23andMe came out of that sense of, I was super frustrated with the industry. I was very clear, seeing that the consumer has no power, that there's a potential for crowdsourcing. And I was fortunate to have the Stanford upbringing and this Silicon Valley community that was really supportive of think crazy thoughts and follow your passions, and it's okay to fail. Everyone fails at different times. Do it.