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If the board is resigning, and the company is selling DNA kits, running a telemedicine operation, selling pharmceuticals online AND developing cancer drugs at a

If the board is resigning, and the company is selling DNA kits, running a telemedicine operation, selling pharmceuticals online AND developing cancer drugs at a 180 million dollar market cap... It's quite possible there was no plan at all...

AlbertCory 2y ago
I saw Ann when she gave a talk at Google (that was when she was still married to Sergey). They had spit cups we could use if we wanted our DNA sequenced. I didn't. Their business plan was straight out of South Park: 1. Collect lots of DNA 2. ?????? 3. Profit!!
- marcinzm 2y ago
  Isn't that the case for almost every single VC backed startup?
  - hennell 2y ago
    s/dna/data and you're pretty much any tech business.
burningChrome 2y ago
>>> selling pharmceuticals online That would explain them selling 5 million users DNA information to GSK. Earlier this summer, the often-scrutinized at-home genetic testing company 23andMe sold genetic data from five million customers to the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). This surprised a lot of their customers who had forgotten that they consented to this when they signed up for the service. https://cglife.com/blog/23andme-sold-your-genetic-data-to-gsk-personalized-medicine-ethics/ https://cglife.com/blog/23andme-sold-your-genetic-data-to-gs...
- LarsDu88 2y ago
  OP here. These headlines are simply exaggerated. 23andme sells mostly anonymous aggregated GWAS mapping results to companies like GSK as far as I'm aware
- Y_Y 2y ago
  https://investors.23andme.com/news-releases/news-release-details/23andme-announces-extension-gsk-collaboration-and-update-joint https://investors.23andme.com/news-releases/news-release-det... This is complicated. The don't just zip up all the customer data and send it over, at least they say that they run aggregated queries for GSK and just tell them the answer. But then they say that the data is "anonymized" before this, which seems unnecessary and impossible. Imho it's very difficult to anonymize any data, and especially something like DNA. Without an external audit amd some mathematical guarantee (e.g. differntial privacy) I work on the assumption that they do the bare minimum to pass legal muster but anyone who made the effort could confidently associate the data with real people after the fact.
blitzar 2y ago
Pivot to Blockchain AI in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

AlbertCory 2y ago

I saw Ann when she gave a talk at Google (that was when she was still married to Sergey). They had spit cups we could use if we wanted our DNA sequenced. I didn't. Their business plan was straight out of South Park: 1. Collect lots of DNA 2. ?????? 3. Profit!!

marcinzm 2y ago
Isn't that the case for almost every single VC backed startup?
- hennell 2y ago
  s/dna/data and you're pretty much any tech business.

burningChrome 2y ago

>>> selling pharmceuticals online That would explain them selling 5 million users DNA information to GSK. Earlier this summer, the often-scrutinized at-home genetic testing company 23andMe sold genetic data from five million customers to the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). This surprised a lot of their customers who had forgotten that they consented to this when they signed up for the service. https://cglife.com/blog/23andme-sold-your-genetic-data-to-gsk-personalized-medicine-ethics/ https://cglife.com/blog/23andme-sold-your-genetic-data-to-gs...

LarsDu88 2y ago
OP here. These headlines are simply exaggerated. 23andme sells mostly anonymous aggregated GWAS mapping results to companies like GSK as far as I'm aware
Y_Y 2y ago
https://investors.23andme.com/news-releases/news-release-details/23andme-announces-extension-gsk-collaboration-and-update-joint https://investors.23andme.com/news-releases/news-release-det... This is complicated. The don't just zip up all the customer data and send it over, at least they say that they run aggregated queries for GSK and just tell them the answer. But then they say that the data is "anonymized" before this, which seems unnecessary and impossible. Imho it's very difficult to anonymize any data, and especially something like DNA. Without an external audit amd some mathematical guarantee (e.g. differntial privacy) I work on the assumption that they do the bare minimum to pass legal muster but anyone who made the effort could confidently associate the data with real people after the fact.

blitzar 2y ago

Pivot to Blockchain AI in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...