- For Anne Wojcicki, success is in the genes.
As co-founder and CEO of 23andMe,
Anne revolutionized the field of genetics.
- It was really all about how do I put individuals first
and foremost as like the center of the product,
engage them with their genetic information
and that we together are all going
to benefit from the human genome?
- Her goal?
Transform the healthcare system.
- Healthcare's a $4 trillion industry,
and we're trying to pioneer a different way
of looking at that.
- I'm Monica Langley, and this is "The Inflection Point".
Hi Ann. - Hi!
- So, I need to ask you about your inflection point.
- Yes. - Was there a moment
that so much changed for you
and it changed the course of your life?
- I think there's really two.
So first,
I grew up on Stanford Campus.
I grew up in an academic environment.
I only knew
professorville and academics,
and I always thought I'm gonna be an MD, I'm gonna be a PhD,
and I'm gonna study and I'm gonna be at a university.
Like it never occurred to me that there were other things.
And I like graduated college, I was hanging out,
and my mom heard that, like in San Jose
there was a job fair and she said, "You should go."
And I remember walking around and
there were all these, like NASA was there,
like all these interesting opportunities.
Like I could be an astronaut engineer.
I could do all these different careers,
and there happened to be somebody recruiting for banking.
She called and said, "Why don't you temp?"
And I came back and I was like, I'm not in banking,
but this idea of healthcare stuff is really interesting.
And she said--
- And you had been a Bio major at Yale.
- I was a Biology major.
I wanted to be a doctor, I always loved it.
And she pointed me to somebody,
the Wallenberg family in Sweden.
She said, "Well, they're looking to hire a biotech analyst."
And I actually went to the job interview
only to get the frequent flyer miles.
And I, at the end of it, I came back home
and I turned down the job.
I got the job offer and I said no.
I remember my dad said, "You know,
"I thought it would've been really interesting for you
"to take that job because it's so different
"from everything we've ever done."
And I called them back and I said, I was like,
"You know, I'd love to actually try it,"
and they offered me the job again still.
And I think about that moment
because if I'd pursued the path which I had known,
everything would've been different.
And I took a risk, I took a risk going into,
I didn't even know what a balance sheet was,
and I've always thought about that moment.
Like the serendipity of the fact that my mom told me,
"Go to this job fair."
And the chance meeting of the woman
who recruited me and then the fact
that I actually followed up on that opportunity.
Everything in my life came from that moment.
And it's one of the reasons why I always encourage people
just to, you never know what experience is going
to be transformational for you.
So you need to, in some ways,
just allow yourself to have lots of opportunities.
I think that the second moment
that was obviously transformational
and in some ways, in a different way,
we hear a lot about the FDA warning letter that 23andMe got.
And I think what happened,
which people don't realize it was also the same time
I was getting divorced.
And it was also the same time I had two small children,
like two children under three.
So in this time period, I had the FDA come after me,
I had articles like "23andStupid",
we had a lot of investors who came to me and they're like,
"You know, normally people at this time,
"you just fold up and you go away."
And it's a lonely moment where you realize it's all on you
and you have to own the fate of how you wanna be perceived,
who you are, how you wanna push things and what's feasible.
It's like, it's all on you to decide your future.
So I always think back on that moment as well as like,
(quickly mumbles) like, I made it, I survived.
- So people may not know,
who was your husband at that time
when you were getting a divorce
to make it so ho high-profile?
- Yeah, it was high profile because I was married to Sergey
who was one of the co-founders of Google--
- Sergey Brin.
- Correct, Sergey Brin,
who, again, who remains a good friend, and it's--
- The father of your two,
two of your children. - The father of my
two children, and things in life change,
but it is also one of those things that you never,
you're never fully prepared for.
- And that was a transformational inflection point.
- Yes, and I had also never been,
I always took these pictures of,
I take pictures of what my web profile looked like
before I got married and I had zero search results.
(Monica loudly laughing)
And I remember always thinking, I was like,
"Ooh, that's so nice."
- And then? And it was one of those
moments when we got divorced
and then also with the FDA, how much--
- You were all over the place.
- People talk about you, and it's a little bit
of that world, which I've never, I never anticipated,
and like never sought out that kind
of publicity of defining who you are
and not letting the rest of the world
define who you are. - You know what?
you know what, Anne though, I also saw
around that time period, you were on the cover
of a magazine called "The World's Most Daring CEO".
What did you think when you were called the most daring CEO?
Did you think you deserved that moniker?
You were kind of out there?
- Listen, I think there's, there's a lot of CEOs I admire.
So there's a lot of people I think out there
that are pushing boundaries,
but I think that what I tried to do,
and I think what 23andMe tries to do is really fight
for the rights of an individual in healthcare.
And so I do think there's a little bit
of a David and Goliath kind of element
of like healthcare's a $4 trillion industry,
and we're trying to pioneer a different way
of looking at that.
And that again, whether it's that makes us the most daring,
I think it definitely, some people might say
we're unrealistically optimistic,
and I like to think that
unrealistically optimistic individuals
can absolutely create a new world.
- What was your vision when you created 23andMe?
- The vision from the inception has not really changed
from the vision of how we've actually executed.
So it was really all about
how do I put individuals first and foremost
as like the center of the product,
engage them with their genetic information,
and that we together are all going
to benefit from the human genome?
We're gonna crowdsource research.
We're gonna crowdsource figuring out
what the human genome means, and we're all gonna benefit,
and you can benefit from additional insights about you,
understanding what your risks are
and changing your behavior, like really understanding
what behavior changes are gonna most benefit you.
So it was really all about
creating a different type of system that's centered on you.
- And you made it accessible to regular people.
I mean, you could get a $99 genetics test.
- The difference with 23andMe is
because we're direct to consumer,
it was not about maximizing the margin.
It was really about enabling access.
- So you, as the founder and the CEO,
I'm sure you've had every test.
Have you changed your life?
- I'm about prevention and knowing what your risks are,
my mom had breast cancer
and I'm on the higher risk for breast cancer.
So there's things I did,
like, I totally cut out recreational drinking.
- They told me when I was diagnosed, no more drinking.
- So I think about like the data,
like having that information actually really got me
to change a behavior pretty early.
- Now, when you founded 23andMe, I think 2006,
did you feel like you were just like taking a big leap
or that it could make it?
- We started with the knowledge that
no one today has ever had their genetic sequence.
And that in the future, at an undefined time period,
every single person will have their sequence.
- What about your business model for 23andMe?
Are customers just curious about their genes
like we've just talked about,
are they more curious about their ancestry, or both
through 23andMe? - It's definitely varied
over time and--
- Oh, so you've seen it change.
- Like in the early days,
I think people thought more about health,
like genetics was associated with health more.
The ancestry stories have
really went viral in 2016 and on.
And it exploded, like people are looking for identity
and they're looking for that connection,
and suddenly your genetics really opened up a portal
that you had never knew existed before.
And you had all kinds of people then
discovering their ancestry, traveling around the world,
and then you had the connection of DNA relatives,
like matching people online.
And I think back also in those early days of the company,
like we never, ever, we thought maybe like one
or two people would connect one day.
It never occurred that you you'd connect so many people.
- How often does this happen for you all?
- I mean, I get somebody,
somebody probably tells me a story once a day.
It's quite common that people are finding
that there's different relatives or they're finding,
like I found that I have a first cousin, that we--
- A first cousin, that you didn't know?
- Yeah, and we're super close now.
- Oh my gosh.
- It's really, I mean, it's great.
I mean, and the thing about 23andMe
and genetics in general is like,
it should just all be about choice.
Like you don't have to do any of these things. - Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- Yeah, but I guess a lot of people
really wanna know this stuff. - Yeah.
- But there're unintended consequences though, in some ways.
Some people are-- - A lot.
- Really happy, you were happy to find your first cousin.
But some people may not be so happy.
- Absolutely.
- They have a father they didn't know they had.
But do you feel a responsibility for this?
- What's different than 23andMe
versus almost all of everyone else in Silicon Valley is
I think the third hire we had was a professor,
Joanna Mountain, who came from Stanford,
who ran population health research studies,
but has a strong background in ethics and genetics.
And so we sat around,
we spent a year actually coming up with our consent form,
before we ever even launched the product
and getting lots of feedback from individuals
about what are the true risks?
What is it that's sort of like a sci-fi fantasy
and what's a true risk?
- That's an interesting way to put it.
- Yeah, 'cause there's things like, you know,
androids are not coming anytime soon,
but the non-paternity is a real, it's a real risk.
And I think a really important aspect of 23andMe
has always been about choice and transparency.
So like our approach to privacy is not to be paternalistic
but to really make sure at every step of the way,
you know what's going on and you know what that choice is,
but 100%, people get the information
and they don't necessarily expect that
their relative is not gonna be their relative.
And it's a surprise and it's hard.
- How many customers do you have right now?
- Over 12 million.
- So you have a lot of data, Anne.
- We do.
- So is part of your business model
to now monetize that data
and how are you doing it?
- Well, if you think back on the mission of the company
is really about understanding the human genome
and benefiting from the human genome,
and the only way - the human genome
is spectacularly interesting to me
because it's only four base pairs.
So it's an AC, G and T,
and you get different combinations
and that can yield a snail,
it can yield a banana, or it could yield you.
And like for me,
I find that endlessly fascinating,
that we're like, you have such a simple code
in different combinations
yield all of this diversity on the planet.
So how are you gonna understand what that code means?
And the way you're gonna understand what that code means
is by having a lot of data.
And that's why, again, the inception
of the company was really about
how can we crowdsource research?
'Cause at no one institution,
like Stanford, Harvard,
Glaxo, like no one's ever gonna be able
to get enough information.
It has to be a crowd source kind of mission to say,
"Let's bring everyone together.
"Let's figure out what the human genome means."
And so as we're on this mission,
we have over 200 papers now that we've published,
but one of the huge opportunities is
to understand the human genome,
but then to actually try to change it in some way.
So 23andMe started a whole therapeutic side of the house,
really with this idea that part of our mission
of helping people benefit from the human genome
is gonna be about finding cures.
- What percentage of your customers opt in
so their data, I think I opted in,
I want my data to go to research. - Yeah
- What percentage does that?
- Yeah, most people, that's what's amazing.
So I think that's part of what we're tapping into here,
is like this idea that everyone,
everyone wants to help and make a difference.
- Do you think you are to the point you have
so much data now on the genome
that you're like the Google of personal healthcare?
- I think, I mean, I think that's a great goal,
but I think we're always,
the genome is so spectacularly complex.
- But I bring up the, if you could be the Google
of personalized healthcare,
because you're part of the fabric of Silicon Valley,
but you also have such a unique tie to Google, don't you?
- Yeah, it was founded in my sister's garage
and my sister has been there for quite a--
- She was like the 15th or 16th employee.
- Exactly. - She's the CEO--
- She's been there longer, she's the CEO of YouTube now.
- I mean, you're--
- There's moments where we sit back.
I mean, you talk about inflection points as well.
There's moments where we sit back and we're like,
we really like, we really, really did have
like a very normal childhood.
(both loudly laughing)
- But, Anne, when you said you had a normal childhood,
let's step back for a second.
Could you really have such a normal childhood
when everyone knows that you have
such a crazy brilliant family?
And as a founder of 23andMe,
I have to ask, is it all in the genes?
- Well, I mean, it's all relative
to the environment we were in,
but we grew up on Stanford Campus.
So everybody around us had a parent who was a professor.
- And he wasn't just a professor, he's head of physics.
- He was head of physics.
- Physics is a tough class.
- But my dad would probably say
art history is a tough class
for him, so like-- - Okay, and then your mom--
- And my mom, my mom runs-- - Was a big, successful.
- The journalism program at Palo Alto High School.
- Right, and then look at you, we talked about your sister.
Your other sister is-- - Janet.
- She's a successful--
- She's a professor at UCSF.
- In a big-- - In epidemiology.
- Yeah, so look at-- - She's very popular now.
- Look at you three girls, all big successes and brilliant.
Okay, you're one of the few women
who are heading a tech company.
There're not that many.
What does that mean to you?
- Well, I think it's important.
I mean, it's become very clear representation matters.
So I realize like my role is important.
It's important to be a role model.
Like if you, if I'm lucky enough to have this position,
then I have the responsibility to be a role model
and to support also the next generation,
and one thing that I love is seeing the number
of women CEOs in sort of like
this next generation of healthcare companies.
- Did you find that once you became
a big-time CEO of a public company,
that you were taken more seriously?
- It took a really long time
for me to have my own identity.
Like when I would go to the World Economic Forum
in the early days, people always look at your badge,
and if it says partner,
they look up the other way.
- You were a partner of a--
- I was a partner of Sergey's.
And so you can't, I got in the relationship knowing that,
what surprised me is that it was really only until
probably a year or two ago
that the press stopped referring to me
as Sergey's former wife.
And even though I'd done all these things,
like I'm running 23andMe, we finally,
we went public, we had the SPAC, we do lots of things,
almost every article still referred to me that way.
And so what's great is like,
I finally, going back to that other,
my second inflection point is like,
you make a decision in your life about
what kind of life you wanna have.
There's absolutely moments where
it's just conservative.
And whether it's like a male-dominated field
and you get excluded for one reason or another,
or like the old boys club,
and the old boys club definitely comes up every so often.
And then you get healthcare is very conservative
and it's a bit of--
- And you are out there with a revolution,
in a way, I mean-- - Yeah, yeah,
not everyone loves it--
- But I've seen articles where it says
that you are giving the healthcare industry
a heart attack, sometimes, the establishment.
- But what I'm pushing for and what I'm an advocate for
is really a true partnership
between the healthcare world and the individual.
- What's next for 23andMe?
- Well, we recently acquired a company called Lemonaid
and that is a very transformational acquisition for us
because 23andMe has always been in the position
of delivering data.
And it's become abundantly clear to me
that over the last 16 years,
people get their data and then they get stuck
when they take it to their own healthcare provider.
And so we wanna become that leader
that's helping you integrate it into your healthcare.
- So tell me what is Lemonaid.
- So what that means, Lemonaid is a,
it's a healthcare platform that has access, telemedicine.
So access through text messaging or video calls
or telephone to healthcare providers in all 50 states.
- You're becoming quite the healthcare mogul here.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do this job
because of the individual impact.
Like I feel like we really are impacting people
every single day and we impact people
in truly transformational ways.
And that can be on the health side, on the ancestry side.
What we do is incredibly meaningful for people
and it genuinely changes lives, so it's amazing.
I mean, that's why I said I do what I do
and I fight for it because it's so impactful for people.
- Anne, thank you so much for joining
"The Inflection Point". - Of course, yeah, I love it!
I love inflection points. - Thank you.
- So yeah, now it got me thinking
about all kinds of inflection points.
- Thank you.
(light upbeat music)