I was an early adopter of 23andMe. I bought many as presents and recommended it to many, many people. I even bought some stock after the SPAC (not the best investment :)).
I have no regrets, and still rooting for them.
There is something magical that I could spit in a tube, and my cousin could spit in a tube, and then weeks later we got emails saying "Out of millions of users we found your cousin just from spit!"
As kids we are lied to about a lot (the big guy in a red suit, for example), so part of growing up is verifying that what you are taught is actually true. If you did not major in biology, you don't have an easy way to verify that what you are told about genetics, DNA, and evolution is true. 23andMe provided that easy test for the layperson. I think that alone is worth the hundred bucks.
The joy I got from verifying DNA is at the core of life is like the joy I got from Intro to Electrical Engineering, building my first circuit with logic gates, and realizing that indeed everything is built up of 1s and 0s.
It seems they haven't developed more of a business beyond that novelty. I think I was expecting they would come out with future innovative offerings, given that their first was cool and done pretty well.
I was never crazy about the drug development plan. Seems like a more logical first step would be to combine with a fitness wearable company (Goog/Fitbit, Apple, Oura Ring, Whoop, Garmin, Samsung, etc), that there might be valuable insights from those datasets merged.
I have no regrets, and still rooting for them.
There is something magical that I could spit in a tube, and my cousin could spit in a tube, and then weeks later we got emails saying "Out of millions of users we found your cousin just from spit!"
As kids we are lied to about a lot (the big guy in a red suit, for example), so part of growing up is verifying that what you are taught is actually true. If you did not major in biology, you don't have an easy way to verify that what you are told about genetics, DNA, and evolution is true. 23andMe provided that easy test for the layperson. I think that alone is worth the hundred bucks.
The joy I got from verifying DNA is at the core of life is like the joy I got from Intro to Electrical Engineering, building my first circuit with logic gates, and realizing that indeed everything is built up of 1s and 0s.
It seems they haven't developed more of a business beyond that novelty. I think I was expecting they would come out with future innovative offerings, given that their first was cool and done pretty well.
I was never crazy about the drug development plan. Seems like a more logical first step would be to combine with a fitness wearable company (Goog/Fitbit, Apple, Oura Ring, Whoop, Garmin, Samsung, etc), that there might be valuable insights from those datasets merged.