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23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

reuters.com

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Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#231

Post by genewitch »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #219
shreyshnaccount wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i always thought that its valuable when you have enough data from an insurance pov? is that a myth?

In the US, health insurers are restricted to using the following for pricing insurance, and genetics is not one: https://www.healthcare.gov/how-plans-set-your-premiums/ All the other types of insurance (life/disability/etc) are free to ask you to provide DNA if they think it would be useful for underwriting. The fact that they do not means the DNA is not providing enough signal to be worth considering in the underwri…

Or they already have it, the same way any insurance company can look up how much coverage my policy has.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#232

Post by DrAwdeOccarim »

kimos wrote: post #223
Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a genetic engineer at a large pharma company. Genetic engineering of human model systems is my specialty. If I were a malicious actor, I could not do anything useful with the genome of any one person. Most peoples genomes are boring and at best sway the predisposition for disease by a modest degree. Exposing infidelity is honestly the best I can come up with.

Thank you for saying this. I’ve done some of these saliva samples and I’ve seen the freak outs about what happens if “they” get my genome. But I cannot for the life of me figure out what they would do with it maliciously? It’s not like it can be used to sign up for a credit card or whatever.

My favorite thriller story idea comes from knowing a character’s SNPs that are also covered by the standard forensic DNA panel. Then the antagonist in the story buys a bunch of oligos that flank the panel targets and spreads them around the crime scene to “frame” the character for murder!

So once the ‘’’bad guys’’’ purchase the 23andme database, the story is complete! They can then frame our protagonist…

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#233

Post by addicted »

phire wrote: post #180
linotype wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So rather than $8 a share they get zero? Sounds like the board was the one that messed things up.

Not zero; In all bankruptcies, the shareholders get whatever is left over after liquidating all company assets and paying back all creditors. In most high-profile bankruptcies, there aren't enough assets to even finish paying creditors, yet alone creditors. However, this is a voluntary Bankruptcy, so there might actually be assets left over to pay out to shareholders.

Which is still gonna be significantly worse than the $8/share offered.

If the value of assets after paying off debtors is > $8/share, then that’s the easiest arbitrage opportunity considering it’s currently trading at $1.80.

Just buy the whole thing for $3/share (an irrefutable premium of 67%), shut down operations entirely, pay off the creditors, and pocket the net assets of > $8/share and more than double your money almost instantly.

If the claim is the CEO ran it into the ground then the board messed up even worse by not replacing the CEO.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#234

Post by addicted »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #170
dtech wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true, shares are a share of the companies assets and future dividends. There are "scavengers" out there who buy a company if its assets are worth more than the market cap, close down the company or otherwise spin out the assets, and thus earn more than they paid for the shares.

> That's not true, shares are a share of the companies assets and future dividends. Possibly true 20 or 30 years ago, but now shares are speculative assets, their worth determined by what the market thinks they might be bought for by a greater fool.

If that’s the case then the likelihood of the remaining net assets being worth more than $8/share are even lower.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#235

Post by genewitch »

mentalgear wrote: post #178
aucisson_masque wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who knows who will buy all this data after bankruptcy... People who think having millions of people dna is worth something. I could think of company working with private investigators or even governments. Your dna sample is part of 23andMe valuation right now, I wouldn’t have hope even if it says your data is removed on their website, there are still backup.

The famous US data delete that is just a "soft delete". Maybe different in California. In the EU with GDPR, companies are required by law to have all your data deleted after a month from user deletion request.

How is this done in practice? Do you all just do backups different? What percentage of deleted data still exists, obfuscated as user1029387 in the tables? With "deleted" boolean column obviously set to true.

The very idea that it's possible to delete all your data from any service not running everything on tmpfs is funny to me.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#236

Post by zyanite7 »

kimos wrote: post #223
Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a genetic engineer at a large pharma company. Genetic engineering of human model systems is my specialty. If I were a malicious actor, I could not do anything useful with the genome of any one person. Most peoples genomes are boring and at best sway the predisposition for disease by a modest degree. Exposing infidelity is honestly the best I can come up with.

Thank you for saying this. I’ve done some of these saliva samples and I’ve seen the freak outs about what happens if “they” get my genome. But I cannot for the life of me figure out what they would do with it maliciously? It’s not like it can be used to sign up for a credit card or whatever.

people back then with the same exact mindset: "what could they possibly do with just my fingerprints?"

im just afraid of the unknown. now its useless but how about after another 5/10 years?

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#237

Post by CharlieDigital »

Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #202
shreezus wrote: post #113

Even if you haven't personally used their service, if any close relatives have, they already have a sizable amount of information on your genome. They maintain the equivalent of "shadow profiles" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_profile ) as part of their data model for "ancestry" modeling purposes - for example inferring a paternal haplogroup based on data uploaded by genetic relatives. I can only hope at the…

I'm a genetic engineer at a large pharma company. Genetic engineering of human model systems is my specialty. If I were a malicious actor, I could not do anything useful with the genome of any one person. Most peoples genomes are boring and at best sway the predisposition for disease by a modest degree. Exposing infidelity is honestly the best I can come up with.

The problem is you are not a malicious actor so you aren't coming up with good scams or truly malicious ideas.

How about scam emails that open by asking people about their family history of some disease with a genetic marker and promising some miracle treatment?

I can think of even worse outcomes depending on how policy on immigration and naturalization shifts

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#238

Post by vintermann »

DrAwdeOccarim wrote: post #232
kimos wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for saying this. I’ve done some of these saliva samples and I’ve seen the freak outs about what happens if “they” get my genome. But I cannot for the life of me figure out what they would do with it maliciously? It’s not like it can be used to sign up for a credit card or whatever.

My favorite thriller story idea comes from knowing a character’s SNPs that are also covered by the standard forensic DNA panel. Then the antagonist in the story buys a bunch of oligos that flank the panel targets and spreads them around the crime scene to “frame” the character for murder! So once the ‘’’bad guys’’’ purchase the 23andme database, the story is complete! They can then frame our protagonist…

It makes entertaining fiction, but in the real world, the ways that can be used to lock you up and discredit you in the public's eye are much more banal. And I doubt they'll get more sophisticated the way things look in the US right now.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#239

Post by vintermann »

shreyshnaccount wrote: post #204
Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a genetic engineer at a large pharma company. Genetic engineering of human model systems is my specialty. If I were a malicious actor, I could not do anything useful with the genome of any one person. Most peoples genomes are boring and at best sway the predisposition for disease by a modest degree. Exposing infidelity is honestly the best I can come up with.

i always thought that its valuable when you have enough data from an insurance pov? is that a myth?

That's what 23andMe thought too.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#240

Post by Metacelsus »

DrAwdeOccarim wrote: post #232
kimos wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for saying this. I’ve done some of these saliva samples and I’ve seen the freak outs about what happens if “they” get my genome. But I cannot for the life of me figure out what they would do with it maliciously? It’s not like it can be used to sign up for a credit card or whatever.

My favorite thriller story idea comes from knowing a character’s SNPs that are also covered by the standard forensic DNA panel. Then the antagonist in the story buys a bunch of oligos that flank the panel targets and spreads them around the crime scene to “frame” the character for murder! So once the ‘’’bad guys’’’ purchase the 23andme database, the story is complete! They can then frame our protagonist…

Yeah, this is definitely possible (and I'd bet the CIA et al already have this capability)
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