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Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

investors.23andme.com

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Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#71

Post by austhrow743 »

brookst wrote: post #11
LarsDu88 wrote: post #2

Literally just one day after 23andMe presented positive phase 2 clinical results for two anti-cancer drugs: https://therapeutics.23andme.com/news-and-research/ The board of directors of 23andMe just resigned in protest. The CEO, Anne Wojcicki (who's sister Susan died of lung cancer last month, and was the former CEO of YouTube) had tried to low ball take the company private at only $0.40 a share -- a more than 96% dr…

To complete the data, the company is trading at $0.34/share, so while $0.40 is a bit lower than the typical 20% premium (~$0.41), I'm not sure it counts as "lowball". It's a typical premium over market cap. Is there any reason to think the company is worth $4.7B or whatever ($9.30/share)? If so the stock is a steal at its current price and we should all buy lots. But can the market be THAT wrong?

My take on their comment was that it should be worth many billions if it was being run effectively but that it's not.

That doesn't mean the market is wrong, it means the market thinks it will continue to be run ineffectively.

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#72

Post by javierluraschi »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #59
javierluraschi wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just arguing that she can't let the company go bankrupt when she placed a bid for $0.40. Even if she could, she could loose control of the company when all shareholders get wiped out, not sure the court will let her keep 70% through bankruptcy.

Acting as a fiduciary would entail seeking a buyer at the best price possible, not a low "take private" offer. Can the CEO demonstrate they're working to find someone to buy them? Edit: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/23andme-ceo-wojcicki-open-thi... > A special committee formed by the company rejected Wojcicki's previous proposal, deeming it insufficient and not in the best interest of the non-affiliated shareholders…

If we agree that public market are the closest we can get to realtime market value, it's hard to argue it's easy to find a better offer. Otherwise, many other companies that are down 95% from their 2021 highs should just find a buyer of their companies to maximize shareholders value.

I think we are disappointed that the market is giving $ME and many other companies non-ZIRP valuations at 95% discounts, and we don't have the cash to buy them at the bottom, like she can.

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#74

Post by breck »

fallingsquirrel wrote: post #56
breck wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Responds: Airbnb, Stripe, Amazon, Apple, USAA, Microsoft, OpenAI, AngelList, Mercury, Coinbase, YCombinator (up to 2022) and more. Didn't: 23andme, VLTA, Reddit, YCombinator (post 2022)

I'm curious to know the topic of these emails. I never once thought to cold email the CEO of a company. (Then again maybe that's why I'm a programmer, not a CEO myself.)

Most of them are minor ideas like the ones I just copy/pasted below. But sometimes they are longer like this one: https://hub.scroll.pub/applecard/applecard.pdf

-----

Nope, we don't have one yet though it would be a good idea. I'm looping in Joe for this.

Thanks for the nudge!

Nathan Co-founder & CTO Help: www.airbnb.com/help Recent press: Washington Post http://bit.ly/KkEzT

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Breck Yunits wrote:

just curious why you don't have a favicon (or maybe it just doesn't work on my computer)?

- favicon police

----

Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 06:19:24 -1000

Subject: Idea: OpenAI should invest in TabNine which uses GPT-2

From: Breck Yunits

To: SArouter@openai.com

The product is one in a million. Hard to code without it now.

But the kid seems overworked and like he's struggling to keep up with demand (https://github.com/zxqfl/TabNine/issues/179#issuecomment-547...)

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#75

Post by dylan604 »

mhsdef wrote: post #25
SoftTalker wrote: post #10

Zero chance I ever give my DNA to one of these companies.

Did your relative? I'm not a geneticist so I could be totally off the mark; but, to my understanding, the painful part is that is a big disclosure right there

yeah, it's like the shadow profiles on social media sites. just because you didn't do it, doesn't mean that someone else doesn't

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#76

Post by [deleted] »

breck wrote: post #15

For the record, 23andme is one of the few companies where the CEO never once responded to one of my emails (2017, 2019, 2022, 2024). You can make a lot of money just by betting on companies where the CEO (or the CEO's office) takes listening to customers'(who are rooting for them!) emails seriously, and shorting those that do not.

[deleted]

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#77

Post by bruceb »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #2

Literally just one day after 23andMe presented positive phase 2 clinical results for two anti-cancer drugs: https://therapeutics.23andme.com/news-and-research/ The board of directors of 23andMe just resigned in protest. The CEO, Anne Wojcicki (who's sister Susan died of lung cancer last month, and was the former CEO of YouTube) had tried to low ball take the company private at only $0.40 a share -- a more than 96% dr…

Closest competitor does a lot of heavy lifting in this situation. Ancestry is the overwhelming leader in the find long lost relative space/your "roots" space. Look at https://www.ancestry.com/ and https://www.23andme.com/ 23andme has basically given up on this part of the business.

Their pitch is health. But that pitch is murky with no good hook to keep you hooked for a monthly subscription. So after they get the initial $99 from the customer, most of the value customer is going to get is already served up in the first report. Maybe their big database will turn into making cancer drugs but maybe it wont.

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#78

Post by justin_oaks »

hackernewds wrote: post #23
jonstewart wrote: post #9

They also just settled a class-action lawsuit stemming from their data breach: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/23andme-to-pa...

"data breach"

To those wondering why the quotes are given, I assume it's because no 23andMe system was compromised.

The data was retrieved via credential stuffing, which is trying username/email and password combinations from other data breaches.

It can be argued that 23andMe should have had stricter login requirements (e.g. require MFA, require longer passwords) and by failing to do so they were responsible for the leaked data. Or you can argue that the users didn't protect their own data since they didn't use long, secure passwords that were unique per website.

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#80

Post by [deleted] »

javierluraschi wrote: post #72
toomuchtodo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acting as a fiduciary would entail seeking a buyer at the best price possible, not a low "take private" offer. Can the CEO demonstrate they're working to find someone to buy them? Edit: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/23andme-ceo-wojcicki-open-thi... > A special committee formed by the company rejected Wojcicki's previous proposal, deeming it insufficient and not in the best interest of the non-affiliated shareholders…

If we agree that public market are the closest we can get to realtime market value, it's hard to argue it's easy to find a better offer. Otherwise, many other companies that are down 95% from their 2021 highs should just find a buyer of their companies to maximize shareholders value. I think we are disappointed that the market is giving $ME and many other companies non-ZIRP valuations at 95% discounts, and we don't h…

[deleted]
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