from Hacker News

Anne Wojcicki Wins Bidding for 23andMe

by mfiguiere on 6/13/25, 8:31 PM with 25 comments

• by mrguyorama on 6/13/25, 9:16 PM

  So, found company, SPAC it to get some of that sweet sweet public market cash, run it poorly so that it goes bankrupt and you resign, and then buy it at auction for less than it's supposed assets?

  Surely that does something bad to economics of investing and running businesses if you can just steal public investment dollars like that, right?

  Is there an alternative that doesn't reward a rich CEO for killing their own company, even if it wasn't done on purpose?

  She put very little of her own money into it. One of the first investors was Google, ie her husband, then it just kept raising money (how much of that money went directly to Anne), billions of dollars of investment, never made profit, and now she gets it for $300 million or so.

• by OutOfHere on 6/13/25, 9:34 PM

  The tech behind 23andMe has long been grossly obsolete. AFAIK, they test a small sample of DNA only, whereas serious people do whole genome testing. A newer company in the field with more to offer is Nucleus Genomics, but I advise finding the full genome test provider that's right for you.

• by The28thDuck on 6/13/25, 9:02 PM

  This is a great outcome no?

• by tintor on 6/13/25, 9:56 PM

  Is there any full genome sequencing company which doesn't keep dna results associated with user name? ie. strong privacy guarantees