No One Cares More About Your Health Than You: Part 1

Anne Wojcicki: I’ve always loved science. I first learned about genetics when I was quite young. I remember waking up in the morning and thinking, “Wow! We have this machinery that works because of a code. My heart and kidneys work, but I'm just a guest who gets to hang out in this body. I don't even have to manage it.” I’ve always loved that.

After I graduated college, I entered the investing world. Learning about everything from nursing homes to biotech companies to xenotransplantation was fascinating. At the same time, I became increasingly disheartened by how the healthcare system worked. The more I talked to CEOs, the more I realized how much moneymaking comes from people being sick.

I wanted to do something that was in the best interest of us, the people. It seemed the individual didn’t have a voice in healthcare and was often taken advantage of at vulnerable times. I learned a lot from HIV/AIDS activism, and the rebellious spirit that moved people to drive change.

The idea for 23andMe came to fruition when human genome sequencing became cheap enough. At the same time, online social networking was rapidly advancing. Low-cost genetic analyses made it possible to crowd source and bring people together. My dad, a physicist, says science lives on big data. If you want to understand the human genome, it’s a simple math problem. How many humans do you need to understand what exactly the genome means?

So 23andMe started with the idea of empowering people with the potential of genetics and engaging them in this quest to understand the essence of what it means to be us.

Anne: My dad's a Polish-born physics professor. My two sisters and I grew up among academics on the Stanford campus. There were several families that also had three girls of similar ages, and we’ve remained good friends. The common thread between the culture I grew up in and the culture of our company is the hunger to do interesting things while pursuing knowledge.

Everyone I grew up with was interesting. My best friend's father was a law professor but pivoted to focus on the environment. Another friend's father—a physician and oncology researcher at Stanford—said, “If you have to do something every day, you might as well love it.” That’s when my love of learning and passion for pursuing interesting projects—and research—began.

We grew up around scientists and our mom, a social butterfly, so we dealt with all kinds of personalities. The way I manage the company is similar. There are different phenotypes, and people want to work in different ways.

Anne: I learned several important things about working with the FDA. One is that governments and policies always change. For instance, at first they didn’t want to regulate us. That mindset has changed. We’re currently dealing with the question of whether laboratory-developed tests must go through the FDA.

Also, there is a formal element to the process and culture of the FDA. I used to take selfies when I visited their building until a security guard told me they weren’t allowed. I would communicate informally, and that was frowned upon. When you work with the FDA, you do what you're supposed to do. They would request analysis on 20 samples. We would present data on 17 samples, along with the reasons we didn’t need 20. They had zero interest in that. You do what they say. So, I had to learn obedience—and I hired people who knew what they were doing.