Zero chance I ever give my DNA to one of these companies.
Why not? What practical harm is caused to you by other people knowing your DNA?
Now or in the future?
Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board
81–90 of 372 posts
Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ancestry owns newspapers.com A lot of Ancestry.com and AncestryDNA was founded to support the Mormon belief that the LDS church can posthumously baptize ancestors of living individuals into the church under the belief that many deceased individuals were not alive to hear the gospel of Joseph Smith. Thus the massive data collection effort for historical information like newpaper articles from this century and the last…
I think they stopped doing it. Jewish organizations were absolutely livid once they found out they were baptizing Holocaust victims.
It is a pretty important aspect of Latter Day Saint theology. They still do it but officially you can only baptize your own family members with the permission of surviving family members. These guidelines are not always followed. Additionally they have said they removed people from their rosters that were improperly baptized but the members I have talked with are skeptical and found it a bit laughable that the church removing a name from a database would somehow undo a sacred ritual.
Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
She (the CEO) has a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. Intentionally driving a company into bankruptcy for personal gain is a massive breach of that duty and opens her up to all kinds of legal trouble. So I would think that's a very bad idea.
reminds me of Elizabeth Holmes, of Theranos fame. I wonder what will happen...How big or hyped up is 23andme?
Unless the data turns out to be fraudulent (ugh!), then 23 & Me seems like it has actually promising products currently going through their development process(es).
Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board
#84Zero chance I ever give my DNA to one of these companies.
Why not? What practical harm is caused to you by other people knowing your DNA?
Book recommendation for you: “IBM And The Holocaust” by Edwin Black.
If IBM (then known as Hollerith) could do that much damage with German census data on punchcards…
Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board
#85Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board
#86Literally 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?
The resignation implication is that the CEO is running the company to the ground.
The comment further implies this is on purpose in order to buy the company cheaply.
Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board
#87[flagged]
I read the wording quite differently. I read a clearly exasperated board resigning in protest due to the intractable relationship with, the poor decision making of, the CEO. If an independent board is unable to effectively govern because of the actions of the CEO, resigning is the correct course of action, and investors have a right to know why.
Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board
#88Literally 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 ini…
> 23andme has basically given up on this part of the business.
The routine emails I get about them allegedly finding new DNA relatives suggest otherwise. The DNA relatives feature is also still pretty prominent in their UI (at least on desktop browsers; haven't looked at the app yet).
That said, it certainly doesn't offer much beyond "these are your relatives; send 'em some messages or something lol". Ancestry probably has a lot more features on that front, which is unsurprising since that's the sort of thing Ancestry was doing long before they even offered DNA sequencing kits like 23andMe does. I don't know if I'd characterize that as 23andMe "giving up", though; more that it's good enough for a product that never intended to enter the genealogy software market in the first place.
Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they stopped doing it. Jewish organizations were absolutely livid once they found out they were baptizing Holocaust victims.
It is a pretty important aspect of Latter Day Saint theology. They still do it but officially you can only baptize your own family members with the permission of surviving family members. These guidelines are not always followed. Additionally they have said they removed people from their rosters that were improperly baptized but the members I have talked with are skeptical and found it a bit laughable that the church…
When I remove records from databases I follow the sacred ritual of BEGIN TRANSACTION…COMMIT;
Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board
#90What is a good alternative to 23andMe that retain confidentiality, and is it enough to use/play with Python packages for genetics
Dante Labs