The Rise, Bankruptcy and Rebirth of 23andMe ｜ The Circuit

I was born here and people tease me that I sometimes still refer to this as my house. Steve Jobs is on the kitchen counter. I know. Steve Jobs is staring at you every time you cook. My mom knew Steve well because she wrote some of the first grants to bring the Mac into schools. And so my mom was one of the first digital programs in a journalism program at school. And so my mom used to like show up at the house, knock, knock, knock, and be like, I need some more Macs. Ann Wojcicki, Bay Area native, cycling enthusiast, co-creator of the Breakthrough Prize in Science, and co-founder of the personal genetics company 23andMe. 23andMe inspired millions of people to spit in tubes in exchange for a glimpse at their genetic code. So you now have the first FDA-approved consumer genetic test. Well, you might call Ann Wojcicki a pioneer. We're going to fundamentally change things. It was a biotech darling at one point worth nearly $6 billion. Before it all collapsed, Ann Wojcicki was forced to resign in order to win it back from the outside. From that moment, it was like a little bit of like a total reckoning of like, what am I going to do? What she did was buy the company for $305 million in cash, restructure it as a nonprofit, and retake the title of CEO. Should we call it a comeback or not just yet? It's an evolution, probably more than the comeback. I joined her for a fast-paced, two-day romp through the hills around Stanford's campus, where she talked to me about winning her job back, co-parenting with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, losing her sister Susan, former CEO of YouTube, and the day her own board turned against her. Those people were friends of hers, and how could they have done that? The shock will never wear off. All while making me work for it. Is this supposed to make my blood pressure go up or down? Down. It's going to go down. No, wait. And my camera crew, too. Now that she's back at the helm, Wojcicki is looking forward to better days. I definitely have like a master's in hard things right now. So when I write the PhD thesis, I'll share it with you, okay? Okay, so we're biking. We're biking. We're biking. So what's your biking routine? Okay, so my biking routine, I bike every day because it's freedom. So I always bike in the morning. I show up in the office, and I'm happy, and I bike home, and then I can kind of process everything that happened in the office that day. So nobody ever, like when it's raining out, and I can't bike, people know it's a different personality. They don't want to talk to you. I'm just going to be more cranky. As kids, like we rode all around, and we used to like hang out and play in all these flowers. Like we played in all of this. Now we're going to Kite Hill. So you might be surprised to learn that this is where we used to fly kites. Wojcicki grew up in an illustrious family. Her father, Stanley, chair of the physics department at Stanford. Her sister, Janet, a doctor and professor. Susan, who's credited with persuading Google to buy YouTube. And the matriarch, Esther, celebrated high school teacher, friend of Steve Jobs, and self-styled parenting expert. Wojcicki studied biology at Yale, then took a job on Wall Street before returning to California. That's when she met her future husband, Sergey Brin, one of the Stanford PhD students working out of her sister Susan's garage on something called Search, specifically Google. Brin gave 23andMe a loan, later repaid when Google took a stake in the company. The couple divorced in 2015, but remain on good terms. We can put our bikes down and then we can look around. You were on the front lines of Google, obviously. Did that empower you or did that sort of give you like a motivation to push through? I think the thing that I learned from them and from like, frankly, like this whole culture is that it's okay to try and it's okay to fail. Like the main thing is like the continuous pursuit of what you're interested in. You buy the company back with your own money. Yes, thank God. Yeah. Why come back? Oh, why come back? Why not start something new? I love it. I love what we do. At the end of the day, I was like, okay, if I don't buy it, I'm probably in my head always regretting it. How'd it feel to write that check? That's a big check. I mean, in some ways it's like a privilege that I can. 23andMe I think is so incredibly valuable and it's now a gift to society. And so this should be the open science platform for the world. Like to make discoveries about like the foundations of life, make discoveries about, you know, what is health, about diseases, Alzheimer's, like everything. The business model seemed reasonable. On one side, a consumer product that was making waves in pop culture. See, there's a new company called 23andMe. And because of them, 23 people now say their father is me. On the other, a treasure trove of DNA data that could theoretically be used to develop treatments to deadly diseases. Any drugs or diseases in particular that you are working on a whole range. Oncology, immunology, neurology, cardiovascular, metabolic disease. So this is major breakthrough stuff you're doing. The company went public in 2021 via a Richard Branson-backed deal. The stock boomed and Wojcicki became a self-made billionaire. She and Brynn had also been buying up commercial real estate in nearby Los Altos, a passion project Wojcicki eventually took over. It's a little bit like real life monopoly. Like you get and buy a building and then you can find amazing business leaders and you can support them. Everything seemed to be coming up Anne. You'd think she owned the place. But the newly public company was about to run into trouble. After peaking at a market cap of 5.7 billion dollars, the stock tanked. 23andMe wasn't selling enough kits to keep Wall Street happy. Then hackers got a hold of data from 6.9 million 23andMe profiles, which certainly didn't help. Suddenly 23andMe was out of cash. Looking back, if you see a blind spot, what was it? I think there's like a number of things that we did wrong. And I think first and foremost, you know, there's aspects that are like totally unsexy but are really important, like corporate structure. I'd go and meet with an investor and they would say, like, what's your identity? Are you a consumer company? Are you a diagnostic company? Are you a therapeutics company? And we'd say like, oh, we're all of them. And like, that's amazing. And at that stage we were at, it was too complex. On March 23rd, 2025, the company filed for bankruptcy. I headed to New York to meet up with veteran journalist Kristen V. Brown to find out more about what happened to the once promising biotech company. You've been covering Anne Wojcicki for a long time. What's your impression of her as a person and as a CEO? There's kind of a cult of personality around her because she's so nice and so enthusiastic about what she does. I mean, nobody believes in the power of the genome more than Anne Wojcicki. What was the promise of DNA when 23andMe first started and what changed? So what changed is not that 23andMe had a bad idea. At the time, it was a great idea. In 2003, scientists finished the first map of the human genome. Francis Collins, the leader of the project, said we would have a DNA-based designer drug for Alzheimer's and cancer by 2020. With this profound new knowledge, humankind is on the verge of gaining immense new power to heal. In the 80s and 90s, they were having all these breakthroughs where they were finding single genes for diseases, right? Like Huntington's disease. We thought most diseases would be like that, that there would be one gene for diabetes, that there would be one gene that made you more at risk for lung cancer. But it's not like that. There are many, many, many genes involved in diabetes. And the fact is that biology is not only still pretty mysterious to us, right? We don't know a lot. What is 23andMe's biggest challenge, in your opinion? I think 23andMe's biggest challenge is that most people who want to get a DNA test kit have already done it. And, you know, how do you grow if people fundamentally don't want your product? Welcome to my crazy home. This is the house you grew up in. It is. I think every square inch of wall has a picture on it. It's very much a history of our lives. So that's a little me, but more importantly, this is a little me. And so that's Susan, that's Janet, and that's my grandmother Rose, and that's me. You know, Susan and Janet dominated. And so I had that luxury a little bit of like sitting back and watching and just like seeing what they did and like what mistakes they made. And so like even at my first job, like I remember thinking like my first year is not about speaking, it's about observing. And I've always kind of been that way. It's like I want to understand the situation before I jump in. A year ago, almost exactly, the company filed for bankruptcy. Tell me about that day and that decision. I mean, it's remarkable to think it was almost a year ago. I had resigned so that I could be part of the bidding process, knowing that there was a likely Chapter 11 filing. You know, I think some of the things that surprised me, like I was, you know, suddenly out. I had none of my email from 20 years or 19 years, my calendar, like everything, like my life. It was just so personal and like suddenly I didn't have it. You know, it's like a death. Like what do you do the day after someone dies? Like you kind of look at everything, like you look at the clouds and you look at the sky and it's different and everything is a different shade. Around the same time her company was falling apart, Wojcicki and her family suffered three real deaths. Her father passed away at age 86. Susan, who never smoked, died at 56 of lung cancer. And Susan's 19-year-old son, Marco, passed away from an accidental overdose. Susan was fighting cancer while you were fighting for your company. Did you talk to her about it? Yeah. I mean, like even when she was in her last month of life, she was like, send me your 10Q and I'll give you feedback. She was a big supporter and she was always trying to help. She was like always the big sister. In 2024, your board resigned all at once. The board put out a statement. After months of work, we have yet to receive a fully financed, fully diligenced, actionable proposal that is in the best interests of shareholders. It is also clear that we differ on the strategic direction for the company going forward. Because of that and your concentrated voting power, we resigned from the board. Now, some of these people are people who've sung your praises for decades, investors like Roloff Botha, Patrick Chung, Neil Mohan, who took over as CEO when Susan left. What conversations did you have with them? And how did that feel? I mean, it was a really complicated time because we'd set up a special committee. I was still CEO, but it was almost like the special committee took over to take on major decisions. So it was a surprise for me when they were saying, we have a disagreement. I was like, what? What were we disagreeing about? I was working incredibly hard to put together a bid. It was hard because Susan died August 9th and the board resigned a few weeks later. Have you talked to any of them since? I've engaged with a couple. So who's in your burn book? Who stuck with you? I think they will stay anonymous in my burn book. People have their own motivations. People have their own reasons why. And it was a really complicated situation. And I should emphasize, I was one of the largest shareholders. And I was going to do whatever I could to be in the best interest of the mission and shareholders. It was an unbelievable surprise to me. Bloomberg reached out to the board members who resigned. All but one declined to comment or didn't respond. Patrick Chung, one of the earliest investors in 23andMe said, it became necessary to reorganize 23andMe and cut some programs, but that the company's mission remains fully alive under Wojcicki's leadership. I want to talk about the data breach that exposed the data of millions of users that wasn't stored securely. When you look back on that, what do you think went wrong? How did you or how did the team let that happen? I've never called it a data breach because it wasn't actually a breach of our systems. Usernames and passwords by other companies that had been breached were released into the dark web. And what we found is there was 13 or 14,000 of those that matched in 23andMe. And, you know, we elected to notify, you know, obviously the 13,000 or 14,000 individuals, but also everyone that they were genetically connected to. And that's how the numbers became so large. Data and security are top priorities. And we always take that really seriously. We always have. And you learn every day. And the most important thing is to be vigilant and stay on top of it. The highly publicized sale stoked fears about privacy. Attorneys General told consumers to delete their data, and Congress called Wojcicki to testify. Failing to safeguard Americans' data from these hostile actors would not only be a critical violation of privacy, but also a national security catastrophe. Drugmaker Regeneron initially won the auction for most of 23andMe's assets, but Wojcicki persuaded the bankruptcy court to reopen the case. Part of her argument was that the data would remain with 23andMe instead of being sold to Big Pharma. And in the end, she won. So ultimately, your offer was accepted. $305 million. It was, on round two. Let's not forget round two, because there was real work, girl. Did you celebrate? Or was it not that kind of a day? The day that I won is surreal. Regeneron put out tons of press around how they won. They were out here meeting with my team. You know, they were in it to win it. And so reopening the auction was a battle. And part of what Regeneron negotiated for was the last look, meaning that they had the ability to give the last bid. And I was devastated, like totally flat out devastated, because I didn't have, you know, Regeneron has $16 billion on their balance sheet. Like, I can't compete. And so I had to have peace with like, I'm going to lose it. And I was like, but at least I'm going to go down fighting. I'm not going to just, you know, hand it over. And so that morning, I walked in and was like, you know, sat down, you know, it's like, you know, a giant table of lawyers. It's like a really expensive table. And, you know, Regeneron said they declined to bid. And I couldn't stop screaming. I was like screaming, jumping up and down. I was crying. I was like, raw emotion. That's like all it was. Like, it was like out of control. It was like out of body experience. What's the hardest thing about being a founder after a very public stumble? You know, it's hard because you want to win and you want to be successful. And for me, success was not just about the monetary side, but it was also the success of humanity and helping millions and millions of people benefit from their genome. And, you know, we're at 13 million today, which is the world's largest, you know, recontactable data set. But to do the things that we want to do, particularly in an AI world, you want hundreds of millions. To really realize the dream of understanding the code of life and having personalized prevention. You know, I look at the Maha movement. I look at everyone here. Like, we're suffering with chronic disease. Like, we're suffering with all these different issues. Susan had lung cancer. Like, how can I understand our health? And to understand it, you need data and you need data that's collected in the right way. And you need engaging with people. Wojcicki took me to the food court she started, where we talked about her philosophy around health. All right. Well, welcome to State Street Market. Love it. So you built this place? We built this place. What do you want? You want to get a mango lassi? Ooh, that sounds good. Let's get mango lassis. You know, you've always been really into preventative health and you've been really critical of the healthcare system. Do you think the system is broken? There's so much money off the dysfunction that you can never change from within. I think you have to start outside. And what makes me so happy now is everything 23andMe did was so hard in those early days. Like, there wasn't even online consent. The idea of having a patient come and get, you know, information on their own was, like, radical. So the fact that there's, like, there's us, there's HIMSS, there's RHO, there's MIDI, there's, you know, HelloHeart. I mean, there's, like, an entire industry that has made healthcare easier. What's your take on the Maha movement? Make America healthy again. Ooh. My mom was, like, very early, you know, teaching us about VHT and preservatives, and you never want to eat, you know, red food coloring and that it can create hyperactivity. So one thing I realized also with my mom is the first time I asked for my medical record, it came with this note across the top that said, as all of us in pediatrics know, this mom can be quite uncontrollable at times. My mom had a tragedy when she was little. Her little brother ate a bottle of aspirin and they couldn't get proper care and he died. And so my mom always had this mindset is, like, if you don't take care of yourself and if you don't advocate for yourself, nobody will. And so, like, time after time, my mom, you know, we have the experience of, like, going to the doctor saying, like, oh, there's this issue or there's this problem and not feeling heard. And then we switch. Like, even I had this issue. I went to the dentist and she insisted on x-raying my mouth. I was like, I don't want to x-ray. So she kicked me out of the chair and I left and I had to go find a new dentist. And the Maha movement for me is reflective of the fact that people are hurting and they don't feel heard and they want to see change. I am a Maha mom. Is that a correct statement, by the way? About 41 percent of Americans say they support the Maha movement, which covers a wide range of claims about food, vaccines and cell phone radiation, often with little evidence to back them up. But skepticism of the medical establishment is growing. And maybe that's an opening for 23andMe to find its momentum again, this time as a nonprofit. How does the whole nonprofit thing work? 23andMe was always a mission-driven company. We were always focused on impact. How many people are signing up to participate and how many lives are we saving? How many papers are we generating? Is it being translated into something that's meaningful for society? We're going to be measured on questions like that, no longer on like, did you generate a bottom line for us? And that's why we're growing as a nonprofit is to say, we're coming back. And where the mission and the dream is still there, we're going to get to 100 million people. We're absolutely going to learn the code of life. We're absolutely going to define what a personalized prevention plan means for each and individual person. And we're going to eliminate preventable deaths. And I can achieve that as a nonprofit the same way I could achieve that as a for-profit. 23andMe's model as a nonprofit is to sell kits, take donations and then use the data for research, both internally and with external partners. In the last year, it's contributed to published research on obesity drugs, cannabis, and using AI to predict conditions based on genes. Billionaire Ron Conway has already committed to donate to the new organization. It's a sign of one of Wojcicki's superpowers. She knows a lot of powerful people with deep pockets and people like her. But there are downsides to being entangled with the elite. Wojcicki's name, along with Brin's, appears in the investigation of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. His assistant once ordered so many 23andMe test kits that the company flagged his request and canceled the order when it was revealed they were for use outside the United States. Jeffrey Epstein was apparently obsessed with genetics and lacing the human race with his DNA. Ghislaine Maxwell emailed Epstein about you directly, saying, Be very nice to her, not stupid. She is interested in mapping DNA. She is key. Smiley face. Did you ever encounter Jeffrey Epstein? Did he ever talk to you about DNA? We met him once. And I don't remember talking about DNA. I mean, so many powerful people, including tech leaders, almost all of them men, got caught in his web. How does this happen? I think that there was a circle of, like, people who, like, hey, you meet this person, you meet that person. I'm going to this event. I'm going to this conference. And you end up interacting. Was it on the island? So we knew—you know, we went to the island once. That was reported. And it was short. But, you know, he was—Jeffrey Epstein was in the TED network and other areas, like, was kind of in the circle. But it was—it was pretty limited for us. Nobody likes to be asked about Jeffrey Epstein. But Wojcicki says she's an open book. You're not scared to talk about hard things or things that other people don't want to talk about. Where does that come from? I have nothing to hide. I've had, like, very public failures. I've had very public divorce. I've had really hard times. You know, I always think about, like, the people who helped me along the ways. Like, what is it that I can do that also helps other people? And frankly, when I talk about it, it helps me. What's your relationship like with Sergei now? Sergei's been a great co-parent for me. You can't go through, like, the kind of crazy life you have—we've had—and, like, not have a deep affection. And I feel like, like, we've raised a couple really amazing children. You had a third child on your own with a sperm donor. What went into that decision for you? Yeah. I mean, I can't help talking about it and smiling a lot because I feel every day, like, I'm so lucky. I really, like, I didn't think I could get pregnant. At 45. I know, at 45. A hundred percent. I mean, I think that's where I look at, like, all these things. Like, when you go into something with low expectations, what happens? But I went in saying, like, I'm not—I'm never—it's never going to happen. So, like, why am I even—like, it was like, I'm doing it just to make sure that I don't feel guilty, that I didn't try, because if you don't try, you can't—you have no chance. What's something people assume about you but always get wrong? I tend to not worry about what people are assuming. But I know people definitely come to me and they're like, oh, you're very grounded. I'm like, well, why would I not be grounded? I was like, I live with my sister, I have my children, there's plenty of people to try to keep me grounded. Another beautiful day. You're seeing Wojcicki background headquarters. I ended my day with Wojcicki, her sister Janet, and her mother Esther in the backyard of their family home to reflect on the challenges of the last two years and finally settle the question of how to pronounce their Polish surname. I do want to start with a lesson on pronunciation, because nobody gets it right. Miss Ann Wojcicki. Miss Wojcicki. That's it wrong? Miss Wojcicki. It's Wojcicki, right? And I thought I had it right, but then when you said it, I was like, I don't say it quite like that. So I say Wojcicki. Yeah, that's fine. That's good. But you said woo— No, whoa, whoa. It's like, whoa, like, whoa, a horse. Whoa. Just ski. Just. It's like, whoa, jet skiing. No, it's not. Well, I'm just trying to make it— There's no consensus in this family. Okay, okay. And you're obviously used to people saying it wrong and spelling it wrong. Oh yeah, the minute they say anything that sounds reasonable, I say yes. I'm curious what you both think seeing Ann having gone through this era of survival. We talked about survival. I mean, it's remarkable. It's really— Like, everything that Ann has gone through. You know, I had a feeling that she was going to be just strong and resilient, but I can tell you as a mom, I couldn't watch because it was hard for me. It is very reassuring for me to see her on the other side, and she has a great company. You know, when I got divorced and it was hard, I remember I had this therapist who was like, you have to do one thing a day that makes you happy. Like, that's just for you. And I've kind of lived by that. We couldn't control Susan getting sick. We couldn't control Marco dying. Like, I couldn't control aspects of 23andMe. And so the thing I can control is, like, making myself happy and optimistic. I interviewed Susan many times, and she was always so kind and so generous with her advice about how to be a mom and how to have a big job. And that, yeah, you could do that at the same time, and you could actually be good at both things. There are so few women in high-profile, powerful positions in tech. Do you see that as another part of this tragedy? Yes, 100%. I think every day, like, I wish I could get Susan's perspective on the world. You know, and there's not tons of female leaders in the tech space. We always thought she might be the next CEO of Google. I know, I know. Look, Susan was amazing, and it was fun for us. We'd be skiing, and, you know, we all bring our different... Like, you have all the kids, and there's this chaos, and Janet has her world. And Susan would be like, I gotta deal with these crazy things that are happening on YouTube. And then she'd be there, and she'd be like, oh, can you bring the diaper bag, you know? I went to the Oscars every year with Susan. And Susan was so funny, because she didn't really care. She was like, I'm just going to buy a dress at Macy's, like, on sale. But she kind of had that perspective, is like, it's not that important for us. Like, no one's, like, watching us. Ann Wojcicki tried to recruit Susan to 23andMe to no avail, but she's had more success with Janet. You now work with Ann. Yes, yes. And I think you also live together. Yes. You know, it wasn't an ask. It was like, you're going to be on the board. Does she also let you borrow her pants in exchange? I mean, how does this work, really? I had to quickly check the outfit to see whether that was mine or truly hers. Well, that's one way to stay aligned with your board. It's too early to say whether a non-profit structure will help Wojcicki achieve her ambitions. 23andMe still needs to persuade a lot more people to buy its tests. But Wojcicki, as one early investor put it, has a willful ignorance of constraints. In Silicon Valley, that's usually considered a good thing. What are the chances she pulls this off? As a science reporter, I learned a long time ago to never say never, right? We're learning things all the time. And our conception of human biology is constantly changing. So you haven't given up on the dream, it sounds like. Yeah. Enable each person to have their own personalized prevention path and accelerate discoveries broadly, like in every area. And we're going to do that. The dream is alive, guys. It's alive. Does anyone have a kite? My letters is uncontrollable. Esther, can you tell us about knocking on Steve Jobs' door and asking for computers? Oh, I didn't knock. He came over to my class. I said, I need some computers. He's like, if you don't tell anybody where you got them, I'll give you some. You're telling people now, OK?