23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by michaelmior » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #96

bobthepanda wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I would also say that a partial reason why these would've dropped is that everyone who can do it has done it. You only need these kinds of results once because your DNA doesn't change. I knew people who were giving or had gotten these as gifts, but those are one-off purchases. And if you've heard of people doing it then you'll do it too but that's also a one-off. I don't think I'd personally benefit because…

That's not quite true. Your DNA doesn't change, but 23andMe only does partial sequences on those test kits. As new techniques become available they can't necessarily retest old samples, so customers who want more complete results in the future will likely have to buy and submit new kits.

This is true but unrelated to their current decline in sales since this isn't an option they currently offer.

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

#102

Post by rglover » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

Surprised they haven't expanded the offering to include regular blood panels and "doctor's recommendations" (subscription revenue). Hell, you could even do a "improve your bloodline" service that plainly explains how doing a, b, and c will help with that and set you on a life plan w/ decade-level health targets.

I'd have to imagine a well-packaged, boutique option for getting that done would be huge (and they'd have most of the infrastructure and relationships to do it). If it was affordable I'd buy it.

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

#103

Post by TaylorGood » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

whynotkeithberg wrote: post #17

I kinda wanted to get one but the privacy concerns and having my data sold/added to a government database scares me.

Knowing your DNA is basically is a sell-through for these test kit companies makes this is a nonstarter for me.

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

#104

Post by hbosch » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

I didn’t buy a test, because my brother did. Why pay $100 to get the same story twice?

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

#105

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

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?

Well, other people's unemployment may also reduce your salary prospects, stop career progression and make switching jobs much harder.

That said, you shouldn't ever carry any credit card debt anyway.

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

#106

Post by tootie » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

marcell wrote: post #95

They sold 10M kits, and they primarily market in the US. DNA never changes, so you have a lifetime max of 1 purchase of 23andMe per lifetime. Their competitors have likely sold 15-30M as well, so maybe 30-40M of these kits have been sold. That's 10% of US market. What's the max conceivable penetration here? 20%?

It's a bit of novelty act right now. Like I know pretty well what my ancestry is and it isn't terribly relevant to my daily life as-is. If these guys told me I was actually part Cherokee or something unexpected, I'd shrug and continue doing what I'm doing.

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

#107

Post by rfc » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 10:19 PM UTC

marcell wrote: post #95

They sold 10M kits, and they primarily market in the US. DNA never changes, so you have a lifetime max of 1 purchase of 23andMe per lifetime. Their competitors have likely sold 15-30M as well, so maybe 30-40M of these kits have been sold. That's 10% of US market. What's the max conceivable penetration here? 20%?

Your germ line genome rarely changes. Your exome changes all the time. Your gut biome changes all the time. There's massive market opportunity but a ton of regulations around how to tap into that market opportunity.

On a separate note, Ancestry is going through a similar issue. They've had double digit revenue declines in their DNA testing suite. The truth around 23andMe and Ancestry is that they're really doing a super shallow sequencing and, I believe, are doing only genotyping. It's not super interesting in the long run because it's such a static dataset. Getting to exomic or metabolic/gut biome sequencing provides much more interesting insights into the human body.

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

#108

Post by bobthepanda » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

throwaway1777 wrote: post #98

bobthepanda wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I would also say that a partial reason why these would've dropped is that everyone who can do it has done it. You only need these kinds of results once because your DNA doesn't change. I knew people who were giving or had gotten these as gifts, but those are one-off purchases. And if you've heard of people doing it then you'll do it too but that's also a one-off. I don't think I'd personally benefit because…

New people are being born all the time. There are many industries based around one time purchases. Think appendix removal or weddings (that one may be more than once for some people)

Gifting someone a thing that could be used as a paternity test at a baby shower would be more than a little rude. And presumably if both parents have already done it why would you need to test the baby?

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

#109

Post by Eric_WVGG » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

marcell wrote: post #95

They sold 10M kits, and they primarily market in the US. DNA never changes, so you have a lifetime max of 1 purchase of 23andMe per lifetime. Their competitors have likely sold 15-30M as well, so maybe 30-40M of these kits have been sold. That's 10% of US market. What's the max conceivable penetration here? 20%?

It occurs to me that they could have followed the software trend where everything is a subscription service. As more is learned from the genome, they can deliver more value to the customers over time.

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

#110

Post by zyang » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 10:22 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #82

jsgo wrote: post #79

> Wojcicki has theories Think the obvious one is that the results are shared and whether someone is a criminal or not (or will be one in the future), people are not particularly comfortable with sharing to parties they didn't initially trust it to for the purposes they trusted it for. Anecdotally, I bought a 23andme kit (just the genealogy one) but never submitted it because the labeling was to send it to the lab in…

Honestly, I would also say that a partial reason why these would've dropped is that everyone who can do it has done it. You only need these kinds of results once because your DNA doesn't change. I knew people who were giving or had gotten these as gifts, but those are one-off purchases. And if you've heard of people doing it then you'll do it too but that's also a one-off. I don't think I'd personally benefit because…

I did it 6/7 years ago because the novelty, and enthusiastically recommended it to family and friends. Now I regret doing it considering how Google and Facebook has abused consumer data. I definitely would not submit my kids to the same fate.