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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

#291

Post by antegamisou »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #248
antegamisou wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not speaking from a position of a grifter though. I don't think it's a stretch that some YC funded startup could emerge and claim that they can map and predict everyone's entire actions/personalities/characteristics through their genome, heavily misinterpreting PGS/GWAS. I don't think they would care much for scientific validity in this case. It won't matter to them if the methods used are reliable. All they'…

>It won't matter to them if the methods used are reliable. the method of being a fortune-teller? I don't see how that would ever be reliable unless we figure out voodoo kinds of tricks attacking the nervous system.

Phrenology thrived and was heavily celebrated only one century ago as well.

In the case of PRS assessment where it's already an established discipline, and not at all as unreliable as fortune-telling, it wouldn't be so hard to weaponize it.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#292

Post by nomdep »

1oooqooq wrote: post #154
Dibby053 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like fingerprint fingerprinting?

no. fingerprinting is like denying a kid at a carnival ride with a height check. what this thread is about is denying a kid a kindergarten spot because the dna shows their height will never get them a basketball college scholarship.

Your example doesn’t make any sense, because they could do it right now: most of the kids are never going to get a basketball college scholarship, everyone knows it, including schools, and they don’t care

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#293

Post by deadbabe »

prolly97 wrote: post #286
ceejayoz wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act gets repealed. Insurers immediately buy their database and drop you because you’re statistically more likely to get an illness.

Luckily most of us live in democracies, where we can just decide whether we want the rules to allow this kind of differentiation.

You live in a democracy until you don’t. It can disappear overnight with the stroke of pen from some populist leader who just ignores laws. Never think you are safe just because you’re in a democracy.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#294

Post by antegamisou »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #237
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.

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

It's very amusing that the parent comment, or anyone else for that matter, believes their credentials somehow are enough to quell us about any potential horrific implications.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#295

Post by jajko »

genewitch wrote: post #235
mentalgear wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Its not even funny, its just dangerously naïve, on hacker news from all. I can bet half of my salary that absolutely none of those records are deleted forever, and even anonymization is probably very soft and reversible, if done at all.

I work at a bank, one of major ones. We have various regulations stating to keep client records for 5 years. We have trainings that specifically say that we shouldn't keep client records longer than 5 years (additional costs, generally just a risk without any reward).

Guess what - main core banking system's DB holding all client data and transactions is ever-growing, no data were ever purged from it in past 30 years. Nor will it ever happen in future. Too complex, nobody owns removal process, nobody rally cares about those data.

This is situation with 0 good reasons to keep data. 23 has massive valuation reasons to keep them. Its not what it can be used for now but the vast unknown potential in future, of data that are inheritable and thus useful for hundreds/thousands of years. Don't hold your/parent's breath, be reasonable in current climate.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#296

Post by ben_w »

eightman wrote: post #155
messe wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the sounds of it, the board is about to find out what the market rate really is.

I mean if it was trading at $8/share isn't the market rate $8/share?

Kinda, but it's complicated. The share price is the number that people will buy and sell as many shares are as actually getting traded, but once you get to significant fractions of the whole company, the marginal cost of the next share can diverge wildly — if one party is trying to get all of them, that may drive up the price a bit, and for any given fraction of ownership there's always someone who sees the share price go up and thinks "hey, I can get even more profit if I hold on for a bit longer!"

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#297

Post by Symmetry »

SecretDreams wrote: post #283
CharlieDigital wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You've gotta think bigger. How about generic profiling by a future malicious government that only wants certain types of genomes to proceed to the next generation?

The government can just run the tests themselves in that case. I think people will resist coercive sterilization more than coercive genetic testing.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#298

Post by maest »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #217
ZeroTalent wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The same thing is happening with Tesla stock. Since it's such a bit part of the S&P500, so half of retail investors buy it in their basket of portfolios and 401ks at trades at 10x it's worth on paper by looking at fundamentals.

That reasoning would lead to concluding all the businesses in SP500 are traded at 10x their worth on paper. Or at least all the ones with market caps greater than Tesla. Edit, since I hit posting limit. To pooper: > Since it's such a big part of the S&P500 The conclusion is based on that premise, so any other business that satisfies that premise should also lead to the same conclusion. To llm: > I think their point i…

Index adda pop and deletes drop in price.

So index membership does change the stock multiple (but not by 10x).

Also, Tesla is an idiosyncratic stock with very high volatility and very high retail participation. Things can be true of Tedla stock which do not have to be true of the median stock.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#299

Post by delichon »

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.

> Exposing infidelity is honestly the best I can come up with.

I'm concerned with being put on a list of ashkenazi, and sold to people who work for my death on that basis.

https://www.wired.com/story/23andme-credential-stuffing-data...

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