Anne Wojcicki sought after to run issues—by myself.
It used to be 2009 and her startup 23andMe used to be driving excessive, fueled by means of a gradual flow a bet cash, intriguing non-public accounts of genome exploration, and the newness of “spit events.”
However one thing wasn’t proper, the then-35-year-old government made up our minds. Consistent with a Wall Boulevard Magazine tale printed this yr, Wojcicki, who had cofounded the corporate in 2006 with Linda Avey, a genetics knowledgeable, and Paul Cusenza, an engineer and government who left 23andMe in 2008, approached the board with an concept: Fireplace Avey and let Wojcicki run the corporate by means of herself. They did simply that, pronouncing that Avey, who had first conceived of 23andMe, could be leaving to concentrate on Alzheimer’s analysis.
“It used to be now not one thing that I selected,” Avey instructed the podcast She Leads previous this yr after the cases round her departure become public wisdom. “It got here as a complete wonder to me and simply the entire method it used to be treated used to be unlucky.”
Fifteen years later, 23andMe’s board would once more play a pivotal position in Wojcicki’s tale. Most effective this time they’d be those turning in a blow. In September, all seven board participants on the suffering genetic checking out corporate abruptly resigned en masse, publicly rebuking their CEO. In a public letter, the crowd—which incorporated luminaries comparable to Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube, and Roelof Botha, head of Sequoia Capital—wrote that whilst they “wholeheartedly” believed within the corporate’s challenge to personalize well being care with genetic knowledge, they disagreed with Wojcicki’s strategic course.
The board and the CEO have been on a collision direction for months, with Wojcicki pushing for a plan she had hatched to shop for the corporate and take it inner most as the corporate’s valuation dropped from a short lived excessive of $6 billion in 2021, to beneath $150 million. Gross sales of its person checking out trade had slowed and a large knowledge breach stoked privateness fears. In the meantime, the corporate’s drug discovery trade—nonetheless in its nascent levels relative to its Large Pharma competition—used to be draining the corporate’s sources and used to be in spite of everything close down.
For its phase, the board had shaped a unique committee to guage Wojcicki’s proposal and give protection to shareholders’ pursuits. Wojcicki, who controls 49.75% of the corporate’s vote casting rights, instructed the board she would now not settle for third-party bids, in step with corporate filings. Given her focus of energy, the most efficient they might do to honor their fiduciary tasks used to be push for the most efficient conceivable take-private deal. The board rejected Wojcicki’s preliminary proposal, which didn’t be offering shareholders a top class, and pressed for a brand new detailed plan that might additionally define how the deal could be financed. That plan by no means materialized. Locked in a standoff, the board resigned, one thing this is nearly exceptional within the close-knit startup international. (A spokesperson for the previous board declined to remark, and particular person board participants both didn’t reply to Fortune’s requests for remark or directed Fortune to the board’s letter.)
The headlines surprised Silicon Valley. However in the back of the scenes, bother have been brewing for months if now not years. And the instincts that served Wojcicki brilliantly whilst she used to be launching her startup started to paintings in opposition to her. Whilst she is a dynamic and galvanizing chief, former executives who spoke to Fortune at the situation of anonymity defined, Wojcicki additionally tends to position herself on the middle of all selections, slowing down the device at 23andMe as brutal marketplace forces bore down. The North Megastar on the corporate, stated one former senior chief, is “Is Anne glad?”
Amid the board disaster, Wojcicki appears to be doubling down in this way—some way of main that Silicon Valley has just lately dubbed “founder mode.”
To make certain, Wojcicki pushes again by contrast statement, announcing that she empowered succesful executives and took over in instances the place executives weren’t doing their jobs. “I’ve at all times stated ever for the reason that very starting, I don’t want to be in fee,” she instructed Fortune in her first on-the-record interview for the reason that board resigned. “There’s no ego for me. I care in regards to the imaginative and prescient and the challenge.” It’s value noting that some girls CEOs say sexist double requirements make it not possible for ladies to function in founder mode; once they do, they possibility retaliation from their team of workers and forums.
Wojcicki sees her additional vote casting rights as popularity of her willpower to the corporate’s good fortune. She has stated she used to be additionally thankful for what Avey delivered to 23andMe in its early years, however she and others believed in 2009 that it used to be the correct time for her cofounder to depart.
As a pace-setter, she added, she has needed to “dramatically” pivot via attempting marketplace dynamics. She has led throughout the biotech marketplace cave in, the pandemic, and higher festival at the person facet of her trade. “I’m certain we’ll spend a large number of time reflecting about what we will have completed otherwise,” she stated.
“I believe we will be able to navigate and land this airplane,” she stated of 23andMe, “however it’s completely difficult.”
Nonetheless, any other former chief on the corporate stated they weren’t stunned when the board resigned, including that Wojcicki might be outwardly captivating, however cussed and controlling in the back of the scenes. Wojcicki’s management shortcomings and her maneuvering to care for energy had been made undeniable as soon as the corporate went public, former senior staff stated. That’s when filings confirmed that Wojcicki additionally had a controlling vote at the startup’s board prior to it went public.
However whilst regulate—enabled by means of a dual-class proportion construction—used to be what Wojcicki craved, it’ll have resulted in the corporate’s undoing. Forums exist to test a CEO’s energy and to give protection to corporations when the trade is in bother. In terms of 23andMe, former staff say, the indicators had been there.
“You’ll clear up all issues”
If there’s a unmarried theme that runs all the way through Wojcicki’s tales about her enchanted early lifestyles in Silicon Valley, it’s self-reliance.
The daughter of a particle physicist who taught at Stanford College, Wojcicki grew up at the college’s campus together with her two older sisters, Susan Wojcicki, the past due former CEO of YouTube, and Janet Wojcicki, a professor of pediatrics on the College of California, San Francisco. Their mom, a journalist and educator, has written a e-book about how she deliberately gave her daughters room to roam (and roller-skate.) In combination the ladies would thieve their neighbors’ lemons to make and promote lemonade once they wanted money. When the youngest Wojcicki yearned for a ski commute in highschool and didn’t have the cash, she began a ski commute trade, she as soon as defined in an interview for Yale, her alma mater.
It used to be a mindset that still outlined the up-and-coming tech stars of the Bay Space, together with her long run husband Sergey Brin, whom Wojcicki met when he and Larry Web page famously started renting her sister Susan’s Palo Alto storage, in 1998, to construct what become Google.
In 2006, a yr prior to she married Brin, Wojcicki necessarily crashed Linda Avey’s first assembly with the Google founders, the place Avey used to be pitching her corporate. Wojcicki and Avey had met by means of this time, Avey instructed the podcast She Leads, so whilst Avey’s team of workers had been shocked by means of the wonder visitor, Avey discovered it thrilling when Wojcicki, whom Avey describes as “very captivating and a large number of a laugh,” got here “bebopping into the room and sat down.” (Avey, who now runs a project capital fund, declined to remark at the listing.)
A yr later, 23andMe launched its first made-for-consumers genetic check. In alternate for a wad of spit and $1,000, the corporate gave customers studies on their ancestral make-up and knowledge about a couple of well being dangers. (Google certainly become one of the vital corporate’s first backers. Brin and Wojcicki divorced in 2015.)
The 23andMe check captured the general public’s creativeness, even sooner or later successful a place on Oprah Winfrey’s record of favourite issues. For some customers, the check returned probably usable, even life-changing data; for most of the people, on the other hand, the consequences had been extra like infotainment, for example revealing whether or not you’ve the gene that makes cilantro style like cleaning soap.
In spite of the thrill, 23andMe for years did not make a benefit, par for the direction amongst early-stage Silicon Valley startups. Wojcicki stated she used to be extra eager about development a motion that put genomic data into other folks’s palms and gave them regulate of their very own well being. However 23andMe’s core trade featured a elementary flaw: As soon as other folks had their genomic knowledge, they didn’t want to carry out the check—or pay 23andMe—once more.
Some other downside popped up in 2013, person who will have closed 23andMe for excellent. The Meals and Drug Management made up our minds that 23andMe’s check and well being studies about an individual’s predisposition to quite a lot of illnesses circumvented the regulator. The corporate took its well being document off the marketplace for two years, whilst Wojcicki sought advisors and regulatory professionals who knew methods to paintings with the FDA. Two years later, the corporate received FDA approval to supply its well being studies once more.
Later, she instructed the Fortune Maximum Robust Girls convention that after she were given the FDA’s caution letter, she buckled down and spent 10 days in her pajamas at the telephone with attorneys. The corporate’s good fortune up to now, stated the previous government who talked to Fortune, “is all all the way down to Anne and her decision.”
Wojcicki’s decision quickly became to a 2d main 23andMe trade: drug discovery, which might leverage its large database of genomic data. For years, the corporate have been examining the knowledge it had gained from shoppers, which incorporated effects from way of life surveys and different data that might assist scientists examine the origins of illness.
In spite of having 0 revel in in drug construction, Wojcicki sought after to spouse with main pharma corporations to promote get admission to to 23andMe’s database and feature 23andMe itself start creating medication, a procedure that calls for loads of tens of millions of bucks and will take years, with few promises of good fortune. When he first joined to guide the newly created therapeutics arm in 2015, Richard Scheller, a outstanding determine in genetic medication whose analysis has resulted in a number of drug discoveries, reportedly requested Wojcicki, “Do you already know what you’re entering?” Wojcicki recalled in a podcast interview that she reassured Scheller: “Sure, I spent a decade making an investment in biotech. I’m neatly conscious about the screw ups.” However she noticed an “impossible to resist alternative.”
In 2018, GlaxoSmithKline purchased into Wojcicki’s daring ambition, taking a stake in the more youthful corporate in a deal value $300 million that gave it get admission to to 23andMe’s database. That four-year partnership allowed GSK to search out drug goals on an speeded up time table, which inspired the corporate to resume for an extra yr—then signal a 2d one-year settlement. (That contract expires this month.) “Our discovery collaboration with 23andMe used to be a robust and productive partnership over quite a lot of years, producing a couple of techniques,” GSK stated in a remark to Fortune.
In the meantime, 23andMe’s development with drug discovery used to be promising—it shared certain results from early-stage scientific trials of 2 possible most cancers remedies. However the corporate needed to close down its dear therapeutics program in August, a predictable end result, the previous government stated, because it ran out of money.
The corporate’s foray into drug construction used to be ill-advised, stated the primary former government, and Wojcicki used to be intent on making it occur in spite of the prices. “Happening the drug construction trail there, that used to be her resolution,” this particular person stated. And that call introduced the corporate to its knees.
Within the period in-between, the corporate additionally failed to complement its direct-to-consumer choices by means of including different exams, comparable to blood exams. Like Google, 23andMe had used person knowledge to construct a secondary trade; not like Google, it allowed its consumer-facing merchandise to wither and lose relevance. “The corporate will have been the Google of virtual well being and it utterly whiffed on that,” the ex-leader stated.
In spite of the corporate’s dismal efficiency, Wojcicki maintained a public character as one among Silicon Valley’s best leaders. She used to be a compelling storyteller, casting herself because the uncommon entrepreneur with the facility to disrupt the giants of the pharmaceutical trade, one former senior worker stated. She had Barbie dolls made in her likeness, seemed on purple carpets, and solid connections to Silicon Valley’s VIPs or even ex-presidents.
In a single sense, Wojcicki concurs together with her critics. “On the time, in 2015, and 2018, after we went even larger into therapeutics, it used to be completely the correct factor to do,” she stated, mentioning low rates of interest, and the corporate’s precious database and “impressive” group. “In 2024, it is the absolute unsuitable factor to do,” she argued. “Everyone seems to be pulling again from making an investment in novel techniques and from beginning portfolio biotech corporations.”
“A part of the problem I in finding as a pace-setter is that you can decide, and according to the ideas you had at the moment, that looked like the correct resolution, and a few years later, it turns into transparent that it is unsuitable,” she added.
Down and to the correct
It wasn’t lengthy after the corporate debuted at the public markets by means of a Richard Branson–subsidized particular goal acquisition goal (SPAC), in 2021, that it become glaring that it will want to carry extra budget, as a 2d former government who spoke to Fortune defined, however that that might be onerous to do for the reason that the corporate had but to show a benefit. It used to be additionally nonetheless evolving. As just lately as 2022, Wojcicki instructed MBA scholars at Stanford’s Graduate Faculty of Industry that 23andMe used to be nonetheless discovering its product-market have compatibility, which means that its exams had now not but grow to be gear other folks may just deliver to their docs to talk about well being considerations. (Purchasing telehealth startup Lemonaid Well being for $400 million, in 2021, used to be a step towards that objective.)
On the identical time, Wojcicki used to be increasingly more navigating a special set of demanding situations—together with her personal board. Difficulties are meant to spur innovation, she stated on a Sequoia Capital podcast on the finish of 2023. “When it’s simply up and to the correct, any individual can sail that more or less send, but if it’s a crucible second, when it’s onerous, you do want to provoke other folks to get that proper more or less creativity.”
As a pace-setter, she stated, it used to be her task to continuously encourage. And on this she succeeded, stated the second one government. “Anne is a maximum superb, beneficiant particular person. She is superb a laugh,” they stated, and he or she cares deeply about her staff. She is also democratic and open to discuss—to some extent. She wasn’t one to invite her deputies for recommendation or to empower them, the ex-executive remembers. As a substitute, she once in a while sought outdoor enter on corporate selections from her many connections throughout Silicon Valley and in well being care as a result of she believed within the knowledge of the group. “I imagine if you are a pace-setter, you leverage people,” this government stated. However the ones other folks want to be throughout the corporate. “That is why you’ve a group.”
Wojcicki’s insistence that each one selections run via her—and now and again her prolonged community—created what the chief known as a “latency” in 23andMe’s operations. The manager and their friends relayed those problems to board participants, the chief says.
In the meantime, it used to be changing into increasingly transparent that the mathematics simply wasn’t including up. A tale within the Wall Boulevard Magazine, printed in January, warned that the corporate may just run out of money by means of 2025. The corporate has just lately performed a number of rounds of layoffs and misplaced a number of high-ranking staff, together with Joe Arron, the manager clinical officer, and Kathy Hibbs, the previous leader administrative officer who, as leader felony officer, had helped the corporate win FDA approval. Steve Schoch, CFO for 4 years, left in 2022.
Wojcicki strongly disagrees with claims that she didn’t delegate or that she handicapped senior leaders by means of striking directly to energy whilst she crowdsourced main questions. She gave Scheller complete regulate over the corporate’s therapeutics trade, she insisted, and when she wanted to determine methods to win approval from the FDA, she gave that venture to Hibbs and let her do her factor. Scheller and Hibbs didn’t reply to Fortune’s requests for remark.
Wojcicki sees herself as a pace-setter who enjoys debate, and likes to push her other folks to assume large, however says that now not all of her group leaders took kindly to being challenged. “The ones other folks in most cases are a subject matter,” she stated.
She additionally denied that she automatically turns to outsiders to settle large corporate selections, however defined that she relishes finding out from people. “I at all times stated one among my superpowers as a kid used to be with the ability to concentrate to as many of us as I will be able to, however then forget about maximum of them,” she stated. As CEO, she defined, “I really like listening to from other other folks, how they lead, how they make selections, what they recall to mind other methods, after which we come to a decision what is easiest for us.”
Joyce Tung, head of study and a 23andMe worker of 17 years, instructed Fortune that Wojcicki provides her complete autonomy to run her division and make an important calls about generation investments or analysis partnerships, and that she admires Wojcicki’s analytical way and deep wisdom of genomics. Then again, she additionally recalled an incident when Wojcicki overturned a product naming resolution made by means of a senior chief after a extra junior worker had raised considerations. That senior chief stuck within the heart believed the problem have been settled. “If you are the individual whose resolution were given overturned, you may well be like, ‘Neatly, that is worrying,’” Tung stated, including that there have been a number of examples of such incidents. However in the event you’re the junior worker, that’s “massively empowering.”
“There’s no absolute best method of doing issues, proper?” she stated.
Over the last yr, Wojcicki had additionally been coping with grief and hardships in her non-public lifestyles—her sister Susan’s sickness and loss of life in early August, and the loss of life of Susan’s 19-year-old son closing wintry weather. The ones occasions helped her focal point, she instructed Fortune. “[Grief] lets you kind of minimize out the noise and reply to the issues which are maximum vital,” she stated. At 23andMe, Wojcicki arrange a lung most cancers genetic learn about with 20 lung most cancers advocacy teams, a construction she introduced in July.
Those who know her say the ones losses, blended with the turmoil at 23andMe, should be gut-wrenching. The previous board participants had as soon as counted themselves amongst Wojcicki’s shut pals, a 3rd government stated, and so they weren’t the type of individuals who would have sought after to wonder or embarrass Wojcicki. Lots of the board participants had put years in their time and effort into Wojcicki’s good fortune. Wojcicki declined to remark in regards to the board past announcing most effective that she used to be “if truth be told stunned” by means of the crowd’s movements.
The board’s resignation letter used to be signed by means of all seven impartial administrators, together with Sequoia’s Botha, in addition to Patrick Chung, head of Xfund, who used to be amongst 23andMe’s earliest buyers; Scheller, the previous head of therapeutics who left in 2019; Sandra Hernández, CEO of the California Well being Care Basis; Valerie 1st viscount montgomery of alamein Rice, president and dean of Morehouse Faculty of Medication; Peter Taylor, former president of the ECMC Basis; and Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube, who had tweeted a tribute to his former boss Susan Wojcicki, Anne’s sister, simply weeks prior to the board jointly give up. Mohan met Susan 17 years in the past, he wrote on X, including, “I’m ceaselessly thankful for her friendship and steering. I can omit her drastically. My center is going out to her circle of relatives and family members.”
“It is a actually numerous, considerate board, and so they selected to surrender,” the second one government instructed Fortune. “You ended up with the immovable object and the unstoppable drive.”
Most likely the staggering governance implosion at 23andMe will end up to be a turning level in buyers’ tolerance for dual-class stocks, says Friso van der Oord, SVP of content material on the Nationwide Affiliation of Company Administrators. “It can be a fork within the highway, the place buyers would possibly say, ‘Gee, we do not need to have any other 23andMe on our palms,’” he says.
As for Wojcicki, 23andMe has garnered takeover passion from a small New York–based totally DNA checking out startup known as Nucleus, however Wojcicki has maintained she isn’t open to outdoor gives. If she does organize to retain regulate, she would sign up for a handful of enormous corporate founders who’ve wrestled again regulate in their corporate from public markets, as Michael Dell did in 2013, or as others have from inner most fairness teams. Then again, says Charles Elson, founding director of John L. Weinberg Middle for Company Governance on the College of Delaware, the corporate is nearly positive to draw shareholder court cases. Even forming a board may just end up difficult. Wojcicki can appoint participants to complete out the present board time period and face an election on the subsequent normal assembly, or shareholders may just name a unique assembly at any time to elect administrators, consistent with the corporate’s constitution. “It’ll be a slightly lengthy and hard highway for her,” says Elson, “even with the dual-class construction.”
With 23andMe’s long run unclear, it continues to announce new merchandise, like the discharge of a brand new document that may inform shoppers whether or not they’re liable to emotional consuming. (If they’re, 23andMe has a repair; it has begun promoting GLP-1 weight-loss medication.) It additionally just lately introduced that Matthew Knowles, Beyoncé’s father, would grow to be the logo’s ambassador.
However at the board of administrators web page on 23andMe’s web site, there’s now only one photograph: Wojcicki, by myself.
Correction: This tale has been up to date to replicate that Steve Schoch left the corporate in 2022. Additionally, a prior model said the board of administrators may just now not hearth Wojcicki, which used to be fallacious.
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