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The challenge in a startup is you hit a lot of turbulence, and you want people who understand that it's just turbulence and not a crisis.
I really like raw connections, and so I've always had a harder time in politics because I feel there's a lot of veneer around everything.
Did you know that there was a study in 1961 that found that 90 percent of physicians wouldn't tell you if you were diagnosed with cancer?
When I graduated from college in 1996 and the Internet was taking off, I remember this feeling that there was an open range where anything could be built.
I think the U.S. is falling behind. There's massive government initiatives going around the world and you see that there's a real enthusiasm for genetics.
Why should I need a prescription to spit into a vial and get my DNA read? Why can't I get my own blood drawn without a doctor's permission? It's my blood.
If health care is a $2.7 trillion industry, and a huge percentage is paid by the government, then you have to be involved in politics to make a difference.
Part of the beauty of Silicon Valley is that people generally encourage you to think crazy. It's the hypothesis that there's nothing sacred that can't be changed.
The fact that my environment influences my life so much - and that my environment is in my control - gives me a great sense of empowerment over my health and my life.
I think it's important to have flexibility to work wherever is best for you. I actually encourage people to work at the cafe - or from home or wherever works best for them.
Once a week, I might stay late at work. It's sometimes very efficient to work until 7 P.M. - and then come home to kids who are clean and ready for bed. Those days are good.
You should know how to take care of yourself. That's one of the things that I got from my mother most - she always said that if you don't take care of yourself, no one will.
Our approach to medicine is very 19th-century. We are still in the dark ages. We really need to get to the molecular level so that we are no longer groping about in the dark.
I need to solve the problem. It's no different from how am I going to get my son out the door when he needs to go to school. It's a bigger version of that same type of problem.
Everyone's going to die, and everyone's going to get sick at some point. But I do believe that there are choices you can make in life that will make you as healthy as possible.
TIVO was a big shift in how people watched TV, but everyone understood the concept of TV. No one really understands the concept of, well why would I want my genetic information?
As a parent, the most responsible thing I can do is get as much information about my children as possible so I can then think through how I can make them as healthy as possible.
I think it is absolutely crazy in this day and age that I have to go through a trial and error method to see if my child is allergic to an antibiotic or peanuts. I should just know.
If I know I'm at genetically high risk of Alzheimer's, maybe I don't plan to retire at 80, and maybe I'm more proactive about where I'm going to live and who's going to take care of me.
A lot of genetic testing hasn't been integrated into healthcare because it has been expensive. I want to make people realise that they have the ability to be in charge of their own health.
I think that for people who are trying to make a difference, you have to start the company being naive. You wouldn't do it if you understood all the work. I work a lot. I wish it was easier.
It's worth knowing more about the complicated environmental and genetic factors that could explain why traumatic brain injuries lead to long-term disabilities in some people and not in others.
One of the things that got me interested in genetics was the relationship between genes and environment. We are all dealt a certain deck of cards, but our environment can influence the outcomes.
The pharma industry is one of the few industries that comes up every year and brags about how much worse they got - like, now it costs $2 billion to make a drug, and it was a billion 5 years ago.
I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about genetic information and what you can and cannot learn. One of the things we try to do is educate individuals that knowing information is empowering.
It's just the reality. Everyone's going to die and everyone's going to get sick at some point. But I do believe that there are choices you can make in life that will make you as healthy as possible.
As the knowledge around personalized medicine continues to grow, consumers should expect their healthcare providers to begin to incorporate genetic information into their treatments and preventative care.
Im at a slightly higher risk for type 2 diabetes, and my grandmother had diabetes. My hemoglobin a1c, which is one of the measures, started being a little high when I was drinking a ton of that coconut water.
I'm at a slightly higher risk for type 2 diabetes, and my grandmother had diabetes. My hemoglobin a1c, which is one of the measures, started being a little high when I was drinking a ton of that coconut water.
Wall Street was sort of at the height of the fame, everyone thought it was really cool, and I think taking that job, doing something probably more for the money was probably the worst thing I think I've ever done.
I hope that Los Altos is one of the first cities to have self-driving cars, and if that's true, well, awesome, because there's a lot of parking lots that we could get rid of and use for parks. That would be amazing!
I think we are definitely suffering from an information overload, but I believe that there is going to be better and better ways of organizing that information and processing it so that it will enhance your daily life.
If we can actually decrease the failure rate from nine out of 10 drugs failing in clinical trials and instead have seven out of 10 instead failing, that is a major victory for drug discovery and for people having better therapy.
Being in Silicon Valley makes me strict when it comes to my children's technology use. I am surrounded by it all day, so I try to avoid it when I get home. I set screen-time limits, because I think it's good to diversify activities.
It's interesting: I think, genetically, there are people who need different things, like exercise. I need the exercise, others not so much, and I think more and more, we'll start to understand why people's bodies function in certain ways.
I tried to minimize exposure to technology before two. After that, I've taught the kids to use devices in moderation. It's important for them to learn how to control their behaviour themselves. Simply restricting access makes them want it more.
Nobody can quantify for you what's the impact of eating fiber every day, for instance. We can say we think it's good. But some people might say 'Oh, it reduces your risk of colon cancer by 20%, some people might say it reduces your risk by 25%.'
You may not know your complete family history, but the reality is everyone has something, and as you get older, you start to worry about these things more. Health is not sort of like a 6-month project. Health is a lifetime accumulation of behaviors.
I have mothers with small children come to me and say, 'You found that I had early breast cancer - because of you, I don't have cancer.' You've just prevented that person from dying early, and to prevent an early, unnecessary death is incredibly meaningful.
One of the most exciting aspects of 23andMe is that we're enabling you to watch a revolution unfold live during your lifetime, and I think that the decoding of the genome, in my opinion, is the most fascinating discovery of our lifetime, and you get to be part of it.
For people who want to be proactive about their health, there is a lot of information that we can provide. If you are going to have children, I think you have a responsibility to know if you are carrying anything. A lot of people tend to do the testing once they are pregnant.
I think that the idea of people wanting to steal your genome remains a little bit in the world of science fiction. It's a new technology, and it's new science that people are becoming familiar with. It's critical for us to do everything we can to enable the privacy level that people want.
If you don't read it, you don't know. I mean, that's why I have a PR team. They read it and tell me if there's something, and that keeps you focused. I know my family and me well enough; why do I need to read about myself? I'm not going to change, I'm very stubborn in this way. I am what I am.
I think that Google has definitely influenced my moral values and the ethics. I think when Larry Page started the company, they weren't in it for the money. They started it because they really wanted to create something that; one, they wanted, and two, they thought was going to change the world.
I was brought up with a scientific outlook on life. It's the way my father deciphers the world - whether it's football, politics or hairstyles. So I don't get anxious about the future, because I was raised to believe and accept that nothing stays the same, and the best way to survive is to adapt.
People are used to dealing with risk. You are told if you smoke, you are at higher risk of lung cancer. And I think people are able to also understand, when they are told they are a carrier for a genetic disease, that is not a risk to them personally but something that they could pass on to children.
Traditionally, when you talk to people who have Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, they'll talk about how they're in five or six studies, and they've been sequenced by each study. That's just fat in the system. Just have a single data set that then you can share. You can make the entire system more efficient.
I think we're just scratching the surface. One of the most exciting aspects of 23andMe is that we're enabling you to watch a revolution unfold live during your lifetime, and I think that the decoding of the genome, in my opinion, is the most fascinating discovery of our lifetime, and you get to be part of it.
It's not just professional athletes and soldiers who are at risk from traumatic brain injury. More than 1.7 million people a year sustain a traumatic brain injury, and about 50,000 of them die each year, according the Centers for Disease Control. There are both emotional and financial costs from these injuries.
My sister learned she was a carrier for a recessive disease, Bloom syndrome, late in one of her pregnancies. I remember the panicked call and the weeks of worry as she and her husband awaited his test results; if he was also a carrier, this meant their daughter had a one in four chance of being born with the disorder.