Funding and a 1 billion , valuation. Emily joining me today is 23andme ceo and cofounder anne wojcicki. So great to have you here. The last two years for you have been crazy. It could have been disastrous for the company, but now you are back on good terms with the fda. How do you feel about where you are right now . Anne i feel great. Im super proud of the company and what we have accomplished. When you have to slog through, you just have to put your head down and know theres a lot of work ahead of you and youre not going to see a reward for a couple of years, it is hard. I felt like we just climbed the first flight of stairs and were climbing the empire state building. It is amazing we are back on the market. We have an incredible product. We have completely redesigned everything. What im really excited about is that this is the first chapter in a whole new book for 23andme. Emily you have the first fda approved Consumer Test that genetic test that someone can get. Anne consumers can go and buy things like Cystic Fibrosis tests without having to go through a physician. So they can buy that directly from the website and get that information. Emily and this is a test for recessive genes, a thing you might pass on to your kids. Anne correct, something you might pass on to your children, and other things like your eye color, things like caffeine metabolism. Which, again is just really interesting. Emily i would love it if you could take me back to that day when you got that now infamous letter from the fda. Anne it was november 22, 2013. We were at an offsite planning for our future. We were all in great moods. We had hired a great number of people. We had a number of people who had started that week. I think what we learned after that moment is how much there was a disconnect between what we thought we were trying to do with the fda and what they really needed us to do. Emily did you think for a moment, oh my goodness, thats i could lose the company. Anne there was probably about six weeks there where we talked to a number of lawyers, we talked to the fda, and it became really clear that there was no easy option forward. Emily did you seriously consider selling the company . Anne no, the idea that genetic testing is going to be a foundation for health care in the future, it is just core to my being. Im wedded to this company for the rest of my life. Im not interested in selling and i was never interested in closing up shop and saying this is too hard. We need to refocus, we need to hire the right people. We had a major miscommunication. We need to make sure that we are actually extricating advocating and the right way. Emily as you said, it was an arduous process. You hired a team who could better interact with washington. How did you get there . Anne it was literally me picking up the phone and calling everyone i knew, saying who are the heads of regulatory teams that i should talk to . We hired kathy hibbs of Genomic Health and she had a tremendous amount of experience. She understood genetics, she understood the fda and how we could structure the company so people could see the path we were taking. And that people wanted to join. Emily theres so much more you want to accomplish like tests for Breast Cancer and alzheimers. Does have not been approved, what is the progress on those . Anne thats the top of my list. Those are the things we are talking to the fda about, what is the pathway going to look like to move that forward . I dont have any updates on that. Emily your original idea was to give consumers access to their own data and amass so much data that you could singlehandedly move science forward. You say you now have one million customers. Is this the single biggest dna database out there . Anne its definitely the biggest one being used for research. What was exciting to me about 23andme and what we were trying to do, all your genetic information, everything about what you eat and how you exercise in your medical conditions and what you respond well to, that with all this information we will be able to understand patterns and understand the genetic basis for why you might respond to a therapy or why you dont. In my dream world, i can imagine i walk into the physician and he will say, with all the information youve given us, you are a couple of years away from being diabetic. And if you want to make a change, you can do xyz. That is my hope here. By having so much data and by understanding your predisposed risks, that you can make conscious choices about what youre doing on a daily basis to mitigate those risks. Emily sergey has been an a critical part of your story and now you are divorced and you have two kids. How do you go through Something Like that . Emily your dad was a physics professor and your mom was an educator. Tell me about your upbringing. Anne i grew up next to people who did not do things for money, they did things because they loved it and they were interested in it and constantly questioning. This idea that you just question all the time was core to me. Emily your sister janet is an epidemiologist. How do you all relate to each other . Anne we see each other a lot. In my world, nothing has changed. My sisters still come over and they steal my clothes. My sister susan, we see each other at events all the time. Now it is really fun. We are both invited. We went to the oscars together. Emily what do you think it is about your family and upbringing that you have three different daughters in different disciplines . Anne we all learned to take feedback really well. There are few things that people could say that are truly insulting or that i would take offense at. We were raised in a way to be relatively confident in ourselves. None of us do things just for the money. We do things that we really believe in and are passionate about. Emily you went to yale and majored in biology. You also were a competitive figure skater and hockey player. And you were a health analyst. Anne i got a job offer on wall street and originally said no to the job. Then a few weeks later i called them back and said maybe i should go to wall street. Emily how did you go from wall street to Silicon Valley . Anne i loved meeting with scientists and hospitals and just understanding how the Healthcare System worked. The more that i dug into it, the more i recognized how much it is a big mess. A business. I went to one meeting back in 2005 and realized there were 1000 people working on how they were going to maximize billing outcomes for patients so they could take home as much money as possible. I just realized the system is never going to change. For me, that was throwing in the towel. As much as im investing i , believe there is so much potential in the Health Care System, its not the Health Care System that i want. For me it was all about starting , a movement where consumers actually have a voice. Emily at a certain point you met sergey brin, the founder of google. Your sister, susan, rented her garage to him. Anne we used to joke that i could not avoid him because he was always there. We would be washing dishes and we would see them in the other room, and they were just there. My sister was there and it was free food and it was fun, so i got to know sergey. Emily what was it like for you, being on the front lines of the founding of google . Anne the things i was most inspired with, they did not start it because they wanted money. They started it because they really had the dream of having the worlds information on their laptop. I member at one point, larry said we could have sold the company and could have been professors and life would have been good. They just did things their own way. I would complain to larry about the Health Care Space and how much i felt Like Health Care was just dysfunctional. He was like, you are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem. That was a call to action. Emily you learned early on that sergey was predisposed to parkinsons. That became a critical part of the story of 23andme and what you guys were trying to achieve. Anne the discovery came about at the time we were starting 23andme and i had to they told me essentially, what would you do with the information, even if he did have it, what would you do . And i found that really offensive. How dare you tell me what information is valuable for me . It should be my choice. I joked, it was convenient that we had a really spectacular science team, so they put the mutations we were looking for on the chip. I remember i was sitting at the Kitchen Table and i called one of the scientists and said i think sergey has this mutation, is that what this means . And his mom has two copies of it, is that what that means . They were surprised, they had not seen one who had two copies of that mutation. Getting that information definitely catapulted us onto a whole new journey of being involved with Michael J Fox and starting the 23andme parkinsons community. Emily you say you have discovered new insights about parkinsons disease that could help lead to a cure. We made a number of interesting genetic discoveries about parkinsons. We have a parkinsons team and we have some projects we are talking about doing, really understanding the genetic mutation specifically that sergey has. We are talking about some of the big things we are able to do there. Emily sergey has been a big part of your story. You have two kids and two companies between you, and you are officially divorced. When there is so much wealth involved and so much scrutiny, how do you even go through a process like that . Anne all i can say is it is complicated. Divorce is never easy, but we are very good friends. We see each other almost on a daily basis. We are supportive of each other. It is the new reality of relationships. Emily you are a single working mom. Do you have any advice from this time in your life . Anne you just have to accept that you do the best that you can. There are moments when sometimes its just hard, and you do the best that you can do. I think part of it is also being gentle on yourself. You cant necessarily do everything. Part of what sergey and i have done really well, you optimize finding the best in everybody. Emily and you do things so normal. How do you stay normal . Anne you stay focused on the things that are important. I volunteer at the school and i make sure the kids do their homework and i see my family all the time. I still see my friends. Emily you have been active in the issue of women in technology and the lack thereof. How much progress have we seen, and how much progress still needs to be done . Anne it is a 10 year issue. The other issue that is bubbling up now is getting Ethnic Diversity in tech. You dont have to be the best at something in order to have an impact. Everyone is good at something. It is really important that women understand the impact they can have in tech. I feel like part of my job and my sisters job is to not be intimidated. There are men, there are women, and there is [beep]. And you try to work with the man and the women. Just try to find those people that are going to support you. Emily i do want to talk to you about theranos. What do you think about Elizabeth Holmes and the situation that is unfolding anne i have a lot of respect for her mission and what shes trying to do, but i have doubt i have stayed out of knowing the details of it. I think health care is changing quite a bit and people are always going to be skeptical. The onus is on us to be really transparent. Emily what shes trying to do is hard. But after 12 years, does it seem like it should be more evolved at this point . Anne i can walk into any center and i dont need a physician and i can just have a finger prick and get my information. I think that people just want to understand the technology and understand the data. I get that concern, because people are making lifeanddeath situation calls based on this data. They want to understand the why of how these things are happening. Emily this is a 10 billion company. Some people think it is a fraud. Do you think it is possible, what she is trying to do . Anne she works incredibly hard. Im sure it is possible. She is somebody who works incredibly hard. Ive seen her discipline and how much she is working. Im not close enough to the company to know about the technology, but i think its what Everyone Wants to know. Everyone is excited about the potential of that technology and people want to understand what that Technology Actually is. Emily how do you walk that line of protecting your trade secrets and being transparent . Anne she is not required to have the transparency that people are asking for. That is part of the disconnect, the fda has put out guidance where they are trying to regulate that whole industry. If that is the type of call that the fda is making, then it will actually be good to have that same transparency across all diagnostics. When you are in the middle of a crisis situation, it is hard to ever evaluate. That is why it is the medias job, like you guys are all digging in, and when you are executing and you have more fda approval, all those things lead to what the reality is. Right now there is a lot of discussion. Emily lets talk about the future of 23andme. You now share data with pfizer. The goal is to incorporate all of this data into drug discovery. How is the Drug Intervention Program going and how . Anne i am super excited about it. For people who have a disease like parkinsons or multiple sclerosis or Chronic Fatigue or any of the autoimmune diseases. If we can actually use all this data to translate into something meaningful, that is just a spectacular reward for our customers. Emily i know youve been doing a lot of work on lupus, for example. What diseases are you focused on . Anne we have a number of partnerships that we are doing with pharma companies. Ibs, parkinsons is a big initiative. Were about to launch a few others. Emily are you going to do human testing yourself . Anne pharma will react best if we can come to them with a compound with some data about how it is functioning. There is a much higher likelihood of success if we can actually come with that level of information and help move that forward. Emily so that means you would do human testing . Anne we would start some of our own clinical research, for sure. Emily there is competition out there. Do you see google and calico as competition . Anne no, everything we do here is focused on genetics and engaging the consumer and making really engaging products for them. Calico is focused on antiaging, but i always wish all these companies will expand the entire industry, and i want to translate it into meaningful therapeutics, so we can come back and say that hepatitis c has been cured, or that we developed a cure for lupus. When i think about my success moment, it will be when we have had that kind of care that came because millions of people came together and they share their data and because of that we were able to create something. That, to me, is eureka. Emily do you have any plans to go public . Anne im not eager to be a public company, but im not opposed to it either. Its just a question of finding the right time. We will figure that out. There are definitely pros and cons. Emily looking back, is there anything you would have done differently . Anne for sure. When you are pioneering, youre always going to make mistakes. We almost hired andy page five years earlier, and yeah, we should have. That would have really been much better. Definitely an easier Business Model than what we have chosen to do. But we believe so core in what we are doing. In the long run its going to have a massive impact on society. I think back to when we started the company, we were like the lone voice in the microphone. The fact that it is there, it is happening, and its a super exciting world now. Almost like in 1996, when the internet was just starting. It is virgin territory. It is all starting to sprout up. There really can be this Consumer Health care world that is just spectacular, and we are creating something that is parallel to the existing world, but it will reflect more what you and i really want for our health care. Emily i hope to see it. Anne wojcicki, 23andme, thank you for being here. Anne thank you for having me. The only way to get better is to challenge yourself, and thats what were doing at xfinity. We are challenging ourselves to improve every aspect of your experience. And this includes our commitment to being on time. Every time. Thats why if were ever late for an appointment, well credit your account 20. Its our promise to you. Were doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. Because we should fit into your life. Not the other way around. Narrator the contemporary art world is vibrant and booming as never before. It is a 21st century phenomenon, a Global Industry in its own right. Brilliant ideas looks at the artists at the heart of this, artists with a unique power to astonish, challenge, and surprise. In this program, american artist theaster gates. ,