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Ah, 23andMe, the Experian of DNA. Look, I give her great credit for the women in STEM thing, her perseverance in the light of obstacles, and making a 10$ lab k

Ah, 23andMe, the Experian of DNA. Look, I give her great credit for the women in STEM thing, her perseverance in the light of obstacles, and making a 10$ lab kit worth $399 to buyers. But to not understand how far actors would go to get hold of that data, to not understand that the drug industry is brutal because humans are poorly-understood meatsacks (see: anything by Derek Lowe), well, seems like that Yale education didnt impart a whole heap of reflective thinking skills.

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bumby 3y ago
>10$ lab kit worth $399 Can you elaborate? Does this mean they've added $389 in value, or they swindled people of $389? If it's the former, what did they do to create that value? (Not being snarky, I don't know enough about their business and am legitimately curious. There seems to be a lot of comments here about unfulfilled promises.)
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  You have to define "value". Personally, I roll my eyes any time someone questions "value". If a customer is willing to pay $399, then obviously they put the value of whatever the results may be from it at at least $399.
  - bumby 3y ago
    “Utility” is the value I was looking at. I.e., they’ve added something (tests, insight, even just ease of use) that wasn’t available with the $10 version.
- kjellsbells 3y ago
  The former. That is, they convinced people to pay a premium over the material cost of the test. Nothing skeevy about that, just good marketing. Assuming that customers were not misled. "It's not a pencil, it's the thing that writes the next Moby Dick" - that sort of thing.
  - bumby 3y ago
    That sounds more like the latter.
redconfetti 3y ago
I was under the impression more that it was a $10 kit for a $399 test sold for $99 to users, at the expense of the investors in hopes that the data is able to be monetized somehow for more than $400 per user.

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bumby 3y ago

>10$ lab kit worth $399 Can you elaborate? Does this mean they've added $389 in value, or they swindled people of $389? If it's the former, what did they do to create that value? (Not being snarky, I don't know enough about their business and am legitimately curious. There seems to be a lot of comments here about unfulfilled promises.)

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
You have to define "value". Personally, I roll my eyes any time someone questions "value". If a customer is willing to pay $399, then obviously they put the value of whatever the results may be from it at at least $399.
- bumby 3y ago
  “Utility” is the value I was looking at. I.e., they’ve added something (tests, insight, even just ease of use) that wasn’t available with the $10 version.
kjellsbells 3y ago
The former. That is, they convinced people to pay a premium over the material cost of the test. Nothing skeevy about that, just good marketing. Assuming that customers were not misled. "It's not a pencil, it's the thing that writes the next Moby Dick" - that sort of thing.
- bumby 3y ago
  That sounds more like the latter.

redconfetti 3y ago

I was under the impression more that it was a $10 kit for a $399 test sold for $99 to users, at the expense of the investors in hopes that the data is able to be monetized somehow for more than $400 per user.