23andDoReMi
They’ve got your data. Now what?
This column originally appeared in Gallagher’s Irish Celtic Corner. gallagherpdx.substack.com
As 23andMe heads into bankruptcy court, it’s pretty clear that the game plan all along wasn’t to succeed in business by selling curious customers magic kits that could tell them where their people came from a very long time ago.
Nor was it to alert those same subscribers about defects in their genes that could make them vulnerable to any number of maladies. Out of all proportion to the relative size of their populations, the Irish and the English were first in line and “fixed for spit.”
Sure, those were the consumer-friendly features and benefits, but the real deal was..... Act surprised..... sucking your data from saliva samples and computer habits to sell to Big Tech and Big Pharma. The plan worked. For a while at least. 23andMe’s value peaked four years ago at $6 billion. The Wall Street Journal says it is currently worth 2% of that.
Smart Money flowed to 23andMe
Anne Wojcicki, the founder of 23andMe, is apparently back in charge of the company she founded in 2006 with a simple premise, “to help you make sense of your own genetic info.” An early investor marvelled for the New York Times, “So, for the price of a laptop you can now learn the most intimate details of your genetic self. And what about relatives? If people are joining so many social sites to find out what they have in common, why not find out who the person who is closest to you in the genetic sense is?”
“…for the price of a laptop you can now learn the most intimate details of your genetic self.” In the beginning when the 23andMe Cadillac package cost $999
On June 23, 2025 Wojcicki came up with $305 million to buy back 23andMe from a firm called Regeneron, which develops breakthrough drugs. The real boss in the near future is the bankruptcy court which will determine the fate of all your genetic and computer-use data that’s stored somewhere. What a fall for the firm Time Magazine named Invention of the Year in 2008. With a simple saliva sample the firm would “provide an estimate of predisposition for mor than 90 traits and conditions from baldness to blondness,” the magazine reported. Consumer demand to make sense of their unique genetic information sent values flying. Copycat enterprises like Ancestry.com sprang up.
You let them in
Would you be surprised to learn that most of the genetic data collected comes from willing subscribers ethnically characterized as Irish-British? According to more than one estimate, 65% of 23andMe customers are traced back to one big island – England – and an island the size of Indiana across the Irish Sea- Ireland. Let’ see. With 15 million 23andMe customers, it’s possible that up to 8 million plus trace their origin story to a relatively small section of the globe.
Is it safe to suppose that those of us with roots in the British Isles + Ireland are genetically predisposed to want to know where we came from? We’ve got the curiosity gene, obviously. If there is such a gene. That’s the thing with the genetic testing business model. Go after those who care where they came from and those who fear their genetic structure is a ticking time bomb, rife with data pointing to diseases you didn’t know you were vulnerable to.
We’ve got the curiosity gene, obviously. If there is such a gene.
As for who owns your data now that the wolves are at the door in South San Francisco, well, you do of course. But who has that data? There’s the rub. As for what they’ll do with it, remember checking the box that said something bout Rights and Regulations? No one reads the fine print. There aren’t many limits on what can be done with your data and computer browsing practices. You might want to tell 23andMe to DELETE YOUR DATA.
The Celtic Curse
Here’s how it worked in the life insurance business. “Back the funeral hearse up to their door and let them smell the roses.” In other words. Let them smell death. In the case of genetic testing, give them a glimpse of what their medical future may hold. The 23andMe non-ancestral variation of that sales pitch is, “Spit in the tube and find out what kind of medical surprises your genes carry.”
How about “Hereditary hemochromatosis”? It sounds nastier than it actually is, but could be your fate if you’re Irish-English. “Let’s call it the Celtic Curse.” Some creative type in Silicon Valley must have realized that hijacking that term for purposes of selling its kits was in the best interests of 23andMe’s survival.
The problem is, the Celtic Curse has for years referred to the mental health challenges some Celts face; not too much iron. Included in the Curse are anxiety, depression, etc. due to colonization, famine and general societal upheaval. There’s nothing genetic about it. But 23andMe repackaged it as too much iron in your system because of your Celtic genes. Or because you take too many iron supplements. Or had a bad blood transfusion. There’s no known cure but you might want to consider getting you blood drawn and donating regularly.
But wait, there’s more for inquisitive Celts. Pay a premium for enhanced services and you can find out if you are genetically “connected to an elite dynasty in Ancient Ireland.” Well, I’ve got news for 23andMe. If your relatives go back far enough in one of Ireland’s four regions (Munster, Ulster, South Central, North Central) you are descended from Kings, which Ireland had a ton of. Kings who heeded the advice of their pastors and went forth and multiplied; spreading their seed for future dissemination and monetization.
What went wrong?
How did such a high-flying enterprise endorsed by some of the smartest minds in Big Tech end up in Chapter Eleven? Google co-founder Sergey Brin was one of the first “angel” investors, putting down almost $4 million in 2007, the same year he married Wojcicki. Others with moneybags were Richard Branson, Johnson and Johnson and some of the wealthiest Silicon Valley investment outfits. Footnote. Brin and Larry Page famously started Google in a garage in Silicon Valley. Anne Wojcicki’s sister sublet that space to them. Brin’s second wife after Wojcicki was Nicole Shanahan, RFK Jr.’s running mate in the 2024 Presidential election. What came between them to lead to divorce? Shanahan had a “brief affair” with Elon Musk.
Lacking a degree from Stanford, I only know what happened from what I read on the internet. 23andMe is where it is today - devalued by investors and derided by critics of Big Tech – for two reasons. The first is Retail 101. Make sure the customer keeps coming back for more. You’ve got to have recurring revenue. Once you send that saliva in and get your results, what else is there? 23andMe has tried to come up with post-saliva services for which they charge a premium (subscriptions range from $99 to $499).
The second reason is anecdotal. Ask anyone who bought the Ancestry Service alone what they thought of it. They’re likely disappointed that 23andMe can’t be more specific about where their ancestors came from. “You’re Irish-English!” Thanks, I knew that. Some may have believed from the hype that results could steer you to the village, if not the actual street, where your great grandparents were born.
“You’re really a quarter Irish!?! Yeah. I did the 23andMe and everything.”
It might be the funniest SNL skit that never ran. (Can’t be certain, since who has seen all the skits that don’t make it on the show?) An American couple on their “roots Tour” of Ireland walks into a bar.
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