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Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

investors.23andme.com

351–360 of 372 posts

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#351
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by this; isn't the board of directors who picks the CEO? Or are they locked in for some period of time and don't want to wait around?

I don't know the first thing wrt how 23andMe has its governance and voting setup, but the letter seems to imply the CEO has majority power or, at least, a large enough plurality that it is a one-person-show: > Because of that difference and because of your concentrated voting power, we believe that it is in the best interests of the Company’s shareholders that we resign EDIT: But that brings up a different question:…

> But that brings up a different question: If you have majority voting power, why try to take the company private (as it has been suggested by others here)?

Also the question of "what powers does the board even have then?"

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#352
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How has Geneweb worked for you? Is it straightforward enough to use if you are somewhat technical, or do the “wizards” need to have a solid understanding of OCaml to make it worthwhile? My daughter has been interested for years in delving into our different familial trees and has extensive records on paper and in various digital formats. She isn’t overly technical but could be taught to use a web interface if she’d g…

I personally think that Webtrees might be the best bet but that is GEDCOM based and GEDCOM cannot store certain things. My relative is an expert in genealogy and if they say that GEDCOM doesn't cut it then it probably doesn't, eventually. I suggest you look into Webtrees - its a LAMP job. My relative uses The Master Genealogist (TMG) which is no longer developed. We are both Linux users and he uses Wine bottles to ke…

I got GRAMPSWeb working out of 3 containers pretty easily. It's worth checking out as well.

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#353

I used to work at 23andMe, AMA

Where are we at in terms of being able to use genetic info for treatments and lifestyle improvements?

As usual: “It depends’. Data on gene variants related to the first steps in drug metabolism can be quite useful both at home and clinically—e.g, your own responses to ethanol, caffeine, and many over-the-counter and prescribed drugs.

St Jude Children’s Research Hospital routinely genotypes/sequences children before drug treatments to optimize initial doses. It makes a huge difference in outcomes for most cancer patients.

But chronic age-related diseases that older individuals care about most are too complicated and too strongly affected by environmental factors to be well predicted by low coverage sequencing or genotyping platforms. Even deep sequencing and perfect telomere-to-telomere personal genome assemblies (still about a $10,000 to 20,000 effort) will not be sufficient. You really need the patient’s full history and deep omics data. Michael P Snyder and colleagues at Stanford are getting close to this type of “future preventive health care” with a focus on type 2 diabetes.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=michael+mo+stanford&so...

Polygenic risk scores based in simple GWAS results and additive genetic models are uninformative (or minimally useful) wrt clinical care for complex diseases—even those that have moderate heritability. There are simple way too many variables, too many undefined gene-by-environmental effects, and too many non-additive effects (epistasis). Polygenic risk scores typically account for less than 20% of variance in disease traits.

Coming around full circle though—-these platforms ARE useful for pharmacogenetic predictions of initial metabolic processing of drugs—- getting us closer to the right dose the first time.

And the SNP genotypes generated by 23andMe are also valuable predictors for a subset of variants that contribute to nearly monogenic disorders.

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#354
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's not exactly the point, but the answer is you always have a lawyer if you're being questioned by the police, especially if you're not the one who called them. This is in no way specific to any DNA related situation. If any law enforcement shows up and has questions for you, you say nothing until you have a lawyer with you.

Lawyers are expensive. Most people can't afford one for even one encounter with the police, let alone multiple.

If you can’t afford a lawyer just say nothing. Nothing you say will help you; anything you say can be used against you. If you say nothing you force them to use other evidence which they likely don’t have.

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#355
post #58

What is a good alternative to 23andMe that retain confidentiality, and is it enough to use/play with Python packages for genetics

Nebula might be worth checking out, I've heard it's pretty good but I have not personally used it. https://nebula.org/whole-genome-sequencing-dna-test/

They don't say much about data privacy.

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#356
post #175

There is absolutely no reason for these companies to collect your PII whatsoever. You should go to nearest pharmacy and buy sterile swab, swab yourself and write long random number on it and send it. Once a month company publishes one giant zip with all the monthly result where you find your file by that random number you wrote.

It's relatively easy to go from genetic data to a surname, which is a big flaw in your described release method...

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#357
post #67
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what am I missing? Isn't this good news (the positive phase 2 results)?

Phase 2 is not a slam dunk. Much more work remains, and under the guidance of a CEO who has zero drug development experience and a track record of management incompetence: - 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.

Mathematically, the chance of a drug going from phase 2 to phase 3 is roughly 30%

This can be modeled with a binomial distribution as 1-probability of both failing. That comes out to 1-(.7^2) which is 51% of at least one drug reaching phase 3.

There is literally a coin flip chance the company will reach the stage where there is another coin flip it will be worth billions (I believe ~50% of phase 3 drugs go to market), but thanks to the messaging of the CEO, right now it seems like there is a near 0% chance investors (which include former company employees) would benefit from this.

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would completely be fraud, but seems pretty far fetched. They have been (miss)managing the company about the same for 18 years, so it would have to be one of the most epic cons of all time. On the other hand, partial owners and management take companies private all the time. It is an extremely common occurrence. It and PE buyout are probably the two most common ways.

Based on my parent poster's question we're already operating from the assumption that happening and I'm just explaining why that's bad, not how likely it is.

I had a more charitable read of the parent post where they weren't assuming fraud, but just confused

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#359
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong people come into power, decide that they want some sort of purity based one genetic information, you are not it get genocided.

>you are not it [,] get genocided. Wouldn't the singular be 'un-alived', these fucking days?

Well for one, English is not my first language, so take it with a grain of salt. Also: when I use genocide as as a verb, it means there is a concerted effort to kill of a group of humans, that you happen to be a part of.

I know we live in an individualist society, but when you are murdered as part of a genocide that has nothing to do with you as an individual, which is a significant part of the horror of the whole thing. You are then murdered because someone thought you belonged to a group that should be wiped of the face of the earth. Whether you really belonged to that group, whether you share the ideology of the group or of those doing the genocide, wheter you are a really nice individual has nothing to do with it.

So I chose that word for a reason..

Re: Independent directors of 23andMe resign from board

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder, do the "relatives" know and agree that their information is sent to other person?

…yes that’s how it works? You opt in and choose what you share. They’re quite explicit about it.

> You opt in and choose what you share

Until the company gets breached and your choices mean squat. Thanks, no.

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