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23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

cnbc.com

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Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#41

Post by itronitron »

irrational wrote: post #36
mdszy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then there's the fact that if your parents did it, why would you do it? My parents did it so now I have exactly zero reason to do it myself. Also all the negative publicity behind data being sold, which should surprise nobody.

That isn't really true though. You aren't some kind of clone of your parents. Imagine that both of your parents sit down at a table. Each one has 100 dominoes in front of them. Each parent will randomly take 50 of their dominoes and put them in the center of the table. Those are your 100 dominoes. It could be that your mother has 20 "scottish" dominoes, but not a single one of those dominoes are in the set given to y…

that line of reasoning sort of proves the uselessness of even using 23andMe in the first place

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#42

Post by Keverw »

codezero wrote: post #24
jimbob45 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the intuition on credit card debt just that unemployment can jeopardize your ability to make payments?

payments, and ability to even get a job if your score takes a hit... a lot of companies do credit checks before hiring :/

Yep, depends on the state though. Can also affect your insurance rates too such as car insurance, not sure if other types of insurance use it as an indicator but wouldn't surprise me.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#43

Post by 3minus1 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #3

> Wojcicki has theories, but she doesn’t have clear proof for why consumers are shying away from getting tests Because the ones that want them have gotten them and there's no reason to ever buy the product again once you've done it once. I mean, smartphones are great, but the market for them would have hit a wall pretty quickly if no one ever had a reason to replace them after buying their first.

There's room for new products/features. They already offer a second more expensive tier that includes more medical related information. As they do more association tests and the like they'll probably be able to tell people more and more based on their dna.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#44

Post by Keverw »

fetus8 wrote: post #4
dragonwriter wrote: post #3

> Wojcicki has theories, but she doesn’t have clear proof for why consumers are shying away from getting tests Because the ones that want them have gotten them and there's no reason to ever buy the product again once you've done it once. I mean, smartphones are great, but the market for them would have hit a wall pretty quickly if no one ever had a reason to replace them after buying their first.

I mean, there's the fact that companies like this also provide your data to DNA databases that governments and other companies have access too. That seems like a good reason to shy away from getting their tests done.

Yeah, who know's what happens to the data after it leaves you. I know I seen on the news the military was advising against it, I guess if your DNA was leaked in a data breach someone could create viruses that target specific people, sounds far fetched like out of a science fiction movie though so not sure how realistic but I guess in theory it could happen. But ironically, many states like California collect newborn babies blood at the hospital after birth and stores them - even selling some samples to outside researchers, which is true if you look it up but if you tell people that they think you are some conspiracy theory tinfoil hat wearing nutcase instead of doing their own research rather they just attack you, not sure if parents are even aware. Looks like they are supposed to be informed, but the state isn't sure if that happens always by the doctors or nurses at the hospital. Wouldn't surprise me if it's just a small sign on the wall somewhere no one notices.

I have been wanting to though do one of those DNA tests but never got around to it since didn't want to spend the money right now and the whole privacy thing. I never knew my real dad, so I was kinda curious. Then on the other side of the family originally came from the South like Alabama or Tennessee and then before the US Germany but who knows if true just what I've been told by some family, but they very well could be wrong. I'm not sure how true or detailed those reports are either from these DNA test companies.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#45

Post by knodi123 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #3

> Wojcicki has theories, but she doesn’t have clear proof for why consumers are shying away from getting tests Because the ones that want them have gotten them and there's no reason to ever buy the product again once you've done it once. I mean, smartphones are great, but the market for them would have hit a wall pretty quickly if no one ever had a reason to replace them after buying their first.

> there's no reason to ever buy the product again once you've done it once

Actually I did it once about 10 years ago, and since then they've added a bunch of new diagnostic analyses they will perform, including a couple that are relevant to my family and I've been tempted to do it all again.

(although wait, do they need more saliva, or do they just re-run my existing sample?)

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#46

Post by theflyinghorse »

t_serpico wrote: post #29
toomuchtodo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This breaks my heart to hear. I interviewed there in 2011 as an infra guy, and not only was the infra team personable (the winning question was rapidly identifying the symptoms of a duplex mismatch on a switch ethernet port), the VP of Engineering was awesome as well. He even went so far as to say, "As a tech person, you belong out here in the Bay, even if it's not with us". I turned down the offer, but it was one of…

"As a tech person, you belong out here in the Bay, even if it's not with us" - What the fuck does that mean? People working in tech not in the bay aren't second tier.

> People working in tech not in the bay aren't second tier.

Are we though? If we were to establish criteria by which to judge tiers how would anywhere else in the world compare to the Bay? My intuition is that the Bay is probably more productive and gets paid far more for it. The bay certainly drives just about about every tech trend worth a note. Innovation as well how much tech came out out of that region.

Disclaimer: I would love to move there one day just to be in that world.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#47

Post by ThrowawayH4MCb »

Current, unaffected employee here. Throwaway for obvious reasons.

A big chunk of the layoff is the new lab that we built in Phoenix. That only made economic sense in the scenario where we were selling far more kits than we succeeded in selling.

The rest of the layoffs have a similar root cause: a massive overestimate of how much we were going to sell.

I'd blame the shortfall on some combination of growing privacy concerns from customers, failure to understand the demand elasticity as we cut back on discounts, maybe some slowing of consumer discretionary spending, and maybe saturating the market.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#48

Post by dekhn »

redis_mlc wrote: post #40
dekhn wrote: post #8

I can't believe they've received three quarters of a billion dollars of investment.

"Anne Wojcicki married Google co-founder Sergey Brin in May 2007." There ya go. 23andMe was a vanity project for Sergey's wife (now ex-wife.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Wojcicki Same story for Marissa Mayer.

I know quite well (have met all the people involved), but I still can't believe how much money has been sunk into them.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#49

Post by lostinroutine »

knodi123 wrote: post #45
dragonwriter wrote: post #3

> Wojcicki has theories, but she doesn’t have clear proof for why consumers are shying away from getting tests Because the ones that want them have gotten them and there's no reason to ever buy the product again once you've done it once. I mean, smartphones are great, but the market for them would have hit a wall pretty quickly if no one ever had a reason to replace them after buying their first.

> there's no reason to ever buy the product again once you've done it once Actually I did it once about 10 years ago, and since then they've added a bunch of new diagnostic analyses they will perform, including a couple that are relevant to my family and I've been tempted to do it all again. (although wait, do they need more saliva, or do they just re-run my existing sample?)

As far as I know they do need a new sample of saliva because they don't store the ones they already analyzed.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#50

Post by throwaway5752 »

jimbob45 wrote: post #20
throwaway5752 wrote: post #10

Everyone paying attention the pattern of layoffs? Ebay, Mozilla, DigitalOcean, 23andMe, Intel... Pay down your credit card debt and make sure you have at least 6 months of expenses in the bank, if you're young and haven't been through this before.

Is the intuition on credit card debt just that unemployment can jeopardize your ability to make payments?

Yes, just reduce your debt, particularly discretionary high interest ones like credit cards.
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