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23andMe's Fall

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121–130 of 282 posts

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#121

Post by supahfly_remix »

brycewray wrote: post #94
al_borland wrote: post #81

Now we get to see the compromises they choose when desperation sinks in. I think getting the results of one of these tests would be interested, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it, due to trust issues related to handing over something like that to a company with an unproven track record when it comes to privacy and integrity. I figured it was only a matter of time before they were hacked or they decided…

Repeating a comment from 2021[0]: “Entrepreneurs are not at all like ordinary businessmen. An entrepreneur who is not in trouble closes no avenues, keeps a lot of balls in the air, and will never tell you the whole truth when a half-truth will do. An entrepreneur who is in trouble will lie, cheat, and steal. He will smuggle cocaine or ship bricks. We should never measure an entrepreneur by the standards of a rock-sol…

All of the rest of the quotation makes sense to me, but I'm wondering about this part:

> "We should never measure an entrepreneur by the standards of a rock-solid businessman".

Is the author saying that a rock-solid businessman follows a higher code of ethics?

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#123

Post by timy2shoes »

epistasis wrote: post #99
ilamont wrote: post #77

This is a damning indictment of Wojcicki's management of the company. Failed execution on the drug development strategy over 10+ years, lying about growth, pushing out the cofounder, never making a profit, hack that went undiscovered for months ... about the only area she's had success is raising money and that's in large part thanks to being a member of the Silicon Valley elite. If she can't convince her family, fri…

My suspicion has always been that this sort of data–common SNPs from all comers and no specific phenotype collection–is not very useful for any sort of drug design. And if it is, publicly available data will be just as good as 23andMe's larger amount. It was a bet worth trying, IMHO, but always a risky bet. And with bio, you don't find out if your bets work for a decade or more, because the iteration cycle is 10x slo…

My suspicion has been that SNP array data is not that useful for drug discovery. They’re targeting the most common/variable SNPs, which I suspect don’t have a large health effect (except for maybe late in life, otherwise how would they get passed down). I would suspect the more valuable targets would be rarer, or arise de novo (as is common in cancer, eg driver mutations).

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#124

Post by ibern »

Their therapeutic area focus was far too broad. Going after "dozens of diseases" in parallel was a recipe for disaster. It takes a very specific understanding of your disease to translate genetic insight into a mechanistic, testable hypothesis.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#125

Post by brycewray »

supahfly_remix wrote: post #121
brycewray wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeating a comment from 2021[0]: “Entrepreneurs are not at all like ordinary businessmen. An entrepreneur who is not in trouble closes no avenues, keeps a lot of balls in the air, and will never tell you the whole truth when a half-truth will do. An entrepreneur who is in trouble will lie, cheat, and steal. He will smuggle cocaine or ship bricks. We should never measure an entrepreneur by the standards of a rock-sol…

All of the rest of the quotation makes sense to me, but I'm wondering about this part: > "We should never measure an entrepreneur by the standards of a rock-solid businessman". Is the author saying that a rock-solid businessman follows a higher code of ethics?

I guess it depends on what he meant by “rock-solid.”

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#126

Post by mminer237 »

babypuncher wrote: post #120
hasoleju wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> think the stored data they have is their only advantage, but they don't seem to know how to leverage it. I really wonder what happens to that data if they get acquired or shut down. The possible new owner of the data might have a completely different business case in mind. This scenario is something you usually don't consider when you give your data to a company that you trust at the moment.

Like selling it to insurance companies who can use the data to deny coverage.

This is illegal, at least in the US.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#127

Post by logifail »

iancmceachern wrote: post #90
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #11

> She’s sticking to her goal to transform 23andMe from a supplier of basic ancestry and health data into a comprehensive healthcare company that develops drugs, offers medical care and sells subscription health reports. The company hasn't the funds (or time) to develop drugs and I'm not sure why any investors would invest in them rather than a company with a track record of doing so or a potential drug. Selling their…

It would be far smarter for them to try to sell the data to drug companies. In the words of Boromir: "One does not just become a drug company."

> It would be far smarter for them to try to sell the data to drug companies.

Haven't they already been trying this ... for years?

(Way back in 2018): "GSK and 23andMe sign agreement to leverage genetic insights for the development of novel medicines"

https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/media/press-releases/gsk-and-23and...

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#128

Post by kibwen »

progbits wrote: post #95
ilamont wrote: post #77

This is a damning indictment of Wojcicki's management of the company. Failed execution on the drug development strategy over 10+ years, lying about growth, pushing out the cofounder, never making a profit, hack that went undiscovered for months ... about the only area she's had success is raising money and that's in large part thanks to being a member of the Silicon Valley elite. If she can't convince her family, fri…

If they go bankrupt they should destroy all the data but of course they will rather sell it to recover at least a bit of money.

Remember that it's good opsec to rotate your genome every six months.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#129

Post by stanford_labrat »

progbits wrote: post #116
kleton wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BGI (formerly Beijing Genomics) would be the one for you. https://www.bgi.com/us/sequencing-services/dna-sequencing/wh...

That seems like a service you send samples to. I want to buy a machine, observe the whole process myself and then destroy/scrub the machine.

If you really want to do this I would just do it like we do it in academic labs. Prep the DNA yourself and send to Illumina who will do the sequencing and send you the raw data.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#130

Post by pc86 »

supahfly_remix wrote: post #121
brycewray wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeating a comment from 2021[0]: “Entrepreneurs are not at all like ordinary businessmen. An entrepreneur who is not in trouble closes no avenues, keeps a lot of balls in the air, and will never tell you the whole truth when a half-truth will do. An entrepreneur who is in trouble will lie, cheat, and steal. He will smuggle cocaine or ship bricks. We should never measure an entrepreneur by the standards of a rock-sol…

All of the rest of the quotation makes sense to me, but I'm wondering about this part: > "We should never measure an entrepreneur by the standards of a rock-solid businessman". Is the author saying that a rock-solid businessman follows a higher code of ethics?

The sentence immediately preceding your quote are things that a "rock-solid businessman" would never do according to Rind. So it sounds like he is saying that theoretical person has a higher code of ethics for whatever reason.
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