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23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

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Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#61

Post by sailingparrot »

echelon wrote: post #7
sailingparrot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you could get in at the ground floor for incredible and almost immediate share price growth Hence why you can't predict it. If you could, everyone else could, and there would be no appreciation of the shares when the news is released. Only way to know in advance is good old insider information.

It's a new trend. I didn't have "insider information" to make $300k on Gamestop. The evidence was in the open. Right now I'm thinking that you might be able to connect the dots between SPAC owners / founders, their investment prospectus, and similar business they've dealt with. I wonder if anyone's already done this research and found correlations.

> I didn't have "insider information" to make $300k on Gamestop. The evidence was in the open.

What evidence? You followed a trend, and the more people followed that trend, the higher the price, the more it was talked about in wider circles, the more people got in it etc. It's just a legal version of a ponzi scheme.

This has nothing to do with predicting a hard fact such as which two entities will merge in the future.

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#63

Post by breck »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #60
breck wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I have her 2006 letter and there seems to be some inconsistencies: "As you all know, I'm rich enough from Google that I could just go kick it on a South Pacific Island. Instead though, I'm going to spend the next 15 years of my life grinding, taking flak of the press and internet trolls, so that I can set the record for helping the most people in the world learn there ancestry and pioneer mass genetic testing…

Fair enough, but however altruistically you might hold her motives, it doesn't change the fact that the new owners will surely be looking to maximize their returns through new and creative ways of using pre-existing assets. I've watched this movie many, many times over the past couple of decades.

I get that, and yeah have seen some of the same movies.

I do see a lot of potential in 23andMe (though I loathe the name—never put a number in your name! numbers are incredibly overloaded—millions of times less combinatorics; and they become outdated almost immediately—23 is a largely meaningless number).

But 23AndMe at least has built a large number of paying users. If they look at where medicine could be in 10-20 years, and have the courage, they've got a better shot than nearly anyone of leading the way. Someone could be a $1T universal health care company.

The health privacy issues I think are a red herring. Proper medical research entails generating strongly typed data that you can synthesize infinite records with one click. An individual's personal health data should be of little value, and if it's not, then we've got deeper fundamental problems with our system (which we do, but has nothing to do with 23andme)

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#64

Post by [deleted] »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #59
_Understated_ wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did she honestly say this? Do you have a link? If this is true then, wow... just wow! Edit: given that Zuck took the piss out of his customers many years ago [0] as a teenager and is now a billionaire then I guess anything's possible. [0] - https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a19490586/mark-zucker...

I'm... how you say?... paraphrasing.

[deleted]

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#65

Post by AlexandrB »

breck wrote: post #44
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #25

In a letter to customers, CEO and co-founder Anne Wojcicki said, "We're about to cash out of this bitch, and go kick it on a South Pacific island. Just fair warning that the database is going to have new owners soon, who will be keen to sell access to your most-intimate biological details to anyone with an idea on how to make money on it, and a checkbook."

Funny, I have her 2006 letter and there seems to be some inconsistencies: "As you all know, I'm rich enough from Google that I could just go kick it on a South Pacific Island. Instead though, I'm going to spend the next 15 years of my life grinding, taking flak of the press and internet trolls, so that I can set the record for helping the most people in the world learn there ancestry and pioneer mass genetic testing…

There's a weird push and pull on Hacker News where if a company does something unethical it's: "Well what did you expect, they have an obligation to maximize shareholder value", but at the same time founder and CEOs are often venerated as hard-working, almost selfless individuals who dedicated their lives to make the world a better place in spite of their own self-interest. It's pretty jarring.

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#66

Post by mminer237 »

breck wrote: post #63
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, but however altruistically you might hold her motives, it doesn't change the fact that the new owners will surely be looking to maximize their returns through new and creative ways of using pre-existing assets. I've watched this movie many, many times over the past couple of decades.

I get that, and yeah have seen some of the same movies. I do see a lot of potential in 23andMe (though I loathe the name—never put a number in your name! numbers are incredibly overloaded—millions of times less combinatorics; and they become outdated almost immediately—23 is a largely meaningless number). But 23AndMe at least has built a large number of paying users. If they look at where medicine could be in 10-20 y…

It's not meaningless. Humans have 23 chromosomes (except for those with Down syndrome). That's never going to become outdated.

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#67

Post by vlovich123 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #65
breck wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I have her 2006 letter and there seems to be some inconsistencies: "As you all know, I'm rich enough from Google that I could just go kick it on a South Pacific Island. Instead though, I'm going to spend the next 15 years of my life grinding, taking flak of the press and internet trolls, so that I can set the record for helping the most people in the world learn there ancestry and pioneer mass genetic testing…

There's a weird push and pull on Hacker News where if a company does something unethical it's: "Well what did you expect, they have an obligation to maximize shareholder value", but at the same time founder and CEOs are often venerated as hard-working, almost selfless individuals who dedicated their lives to make the world a better place in spite of their own self-interest. It's pretty jarring.

That’s because we all see ourselves as the good guys in the story. It’s remarkable though how often decisions in tough situations always somehow end up benefiting yourself within whatever constraints are placed on your actions when there’s any kind of real conflict.

So if you’re the outsider, you see the harm. If you’re the insider you made the best decision possible with the information you had and the resources available to you. I think both viewpoints are correct in many ways (ignoring those that are blatantly dishonest).

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#68

Post by sokoloff »

ericmay wrote: post #40
lordnacho wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who thinks that's a massive hole in the rules? You IPO an empty shell, which passes easily because it does nothing, and then any old shop with a messy business can then be bought by it?

I wouldn't consider it a hole in the rules, it's more of an alternative listing method. In my view, nothing materially changes. If 23andMe is a turd then an IPO through Goldman or JPMorgan isn't going to really change that, and neither will an SPAC. Although it's a little bit "gambling" because you don't know what the SPAC acquisition will be ahead of time, I think the SPAC vehicle is great for retail investors. If y…

So in other words, a SPAC is “a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is”?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company#Top_reache...

It was apocryphal during that bubble; it’s real now. I do not find that to be a good thing...

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#69

Post by jdpedrie »

AlexandrB wrote: post #65
breck wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I have her 2006 letter and there seems to be some inconsistencies: "As you all know, I'm rich enough from Google that I could just go kick it on a South Pacific Island. Instead though, I'm going to spend the next 15 years of my life grinding, taking flak of the press and internet trolls, so that I can set the record for helping the most people in the world learn there ancestry and pioneer mass genetic testing…

There's a weird push and pull on Hacker News where if a company does something unethical it's: "Well what did you expect, they have an obligation to maximize shareholder value", but at the same time founder and CEOs are often venerated as hard-working, almost selfless individuals who dedicated their lives to make the world a better place in spite of their own self-interest. It's pretty jarring.

The line runs through about the 7th zero in the founder's net worth, I think.

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#70

Post by throwaway9980 »

breck wrote: post #44
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #25

In a letter to customers, CEO and co-founder Anne Wojcicki said, "We're about to cash out of this bitch, and go kick it on a South Pacific island. Just fair warning that the database is going to have new owners soon, who will be keen to sell access to your most-intimate biological details to anyone with an idea on how to make money on it, and a checkbook."

Funny, I have her 2006 letter and there seems to be some inconsistencies: "As you all know, I'm rich enough from Google that I could just go kick it on a South Pacific Island. Instead though, I'm going to spend the next 15 years of my life grinding, taking flak of the press and internet trolls, so that I can set the record for helping the most people in the world learn there ancestry and pioneer mass genetic testing…

Pretty sure there was some personal interest at play. She was married to Sergey Brin. His mother has/had Parkinson’s and I believe I read that based on genetics he almost certainly will also. 23andMe is a data play original conceived, in part, to gather genetic data to further research to extend the life of a billionaire.

Here’s hoping we all benefit from this work. It’s easy to spin things as sinister if that’s what you want to do.

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