
Anne Wojcicki on How to Build the Future - jameshk
https://blog.ycombinator.com/anne-wojcicki-on-how-to-build-the-future/
======
pdog
I don't understand the bias against working on Wall Street.

In fact, Wall Street is much more fun than a generic office park in Silicon
Valley.

~~~
marssaxman
Wall Street is all about money, pursuit of money as a form of power,
manipulation of money as an intellectual game abstracted away from its effects
on the real world - or so goes the image of "Wall Street" as it exists in
terms of having a bias against working there, or in businesses which have a
similar mindset.

Personally, it sounds unbearable, since money is just about the most boring
topic I can imagine, done to death for centuries already; I'd rather watch
paint dry.

~~~
miketery
Money is trust of society in you to allocate resources. It is the signal in
the nervous system to make things move more or less.

~~~
marssaxman
That's one model, sure, but it is a simple model, it has been explored quite
thoroughly over the centuries, and it seems to inevitably bring exploitation
and tedium. Life is short and I have no desire to spend mine going over that
well-trod terrain; I'd rather look for ways of using technology to
disintermediate, to detransactionalize, to find better ways of making
collective decisions and coordinating group effort which do not involve money
or accounting and are therefore resistant to control and exploitation by
gatekeeping institutions.

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projectileboy
I'm surprised by the negative tone of this comment thread. I thought she had a
lot of interesting things to say, both about health care as a business and
about starting a startup.

~~~
carterehsmith
Huh, that was a total waste of some 5-10-whatever minutes I spent.

The title was "Anne Wojcicki on How to Build the Future"

There was absolutely nothing about "How to Build the Future". Just a random
blabber about whatever. 0/10

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mychael
Very uninspiring story.

\- Successful parents from NYC that have their own Wikipedia page.

\- Worked on Wall Street.

\- Educated at Yale.

The list goes on.....

How many people can relate to that much privilege?

~~~
miketery
Sure those cards help. But still impressive to see a trend (cheap Genetic
tests) and the dumpster fire that healthcare is and create something like
this. I'm not as optimistic as the founder on the impacts of all these
datasets, but non the less it will likely help cure or delay onset of a
disease or two for large portions of the population. Let's celebrate that.

------
Uhhrrr
>I’ll always love people debating “Is it in your genes or is it your
environment?” I’m like no! The whole beauty of it is that it’s both.

It would be fun hearing a debate between Anne and Susan about this.

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wiz21c
I can't believe what she says : can one non-doctor person be in charge of its
cancer treatment (she says "be in control" in the 6 first minutes) ? Last time
I read about immune system/genetics it was super complex and required a ton of
background. I would definitely not want to be in control on my treatment. The
best I can do is double check some facts on a few forums, have a general
feeling about who takes care of me but one has to admit that's not very useful
(at best it reassures me on false ideas).

Also she uses the term "consumer" in place of "patient" several times. That
seems wrong to me.

~~~
miketery
Not in charge of treatment maybe in charge of the cost benefit analysis of a
decision. Most people just spend a lot resources for not much.

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fyrstenberg
Is this a poor and cringe way of admitting Y is onboard the United Nation's
Agenda 2030 program? [1]

Will the next interview be about partnering with World Government Summit? [2]

We had people in Europe trying this for a very long time - didn't end well
(never does)..

[1]:
[https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingo...](https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld)

[2]:
[https://www.worldgovernmentsummit.org/partners](https://www.worldgovernmentsummit.org/partners)

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BIackSwan
There are a whole bunch of private videos in the playlist for "How to Build
the Future" series. Why? Is it that the videos are just not ready yet?

~~~
striking
They're probably scheduled to be published.

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gnicholas
> _that 's the thing about 'overnight success'—ten years of persistence_

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berg01
Sometimes, for people like me it's hard to keep track of who's who in tech
royalty.

Here's a guide of some of their connections. (My first honest reaction: it
does seem fairly incestuous. And then I'm not even getting into.. well, let's
say more diversity would be a great thing here. All of the people mentioned
here belong to one particular subgroup in the US. It just feels odd to me.
Diversity hasn't reached these levels yet, I guess.)

Anne Wojcicki: CEO of 23andMe. Former part-time partner of Y Combinator, back
then along with Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of Pinterest; and Joe
Gebbia, co-founder and chief product officer of Airbnb:
[https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2015/09/y...](https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2015/09/y-combinator-
announces-3-new-part-time-partners.html)

Sergey Brin: co-founder of Google and formerly married to Anne.

Susan Wojcicki: Anne's sister, and CEO of Youtube, owned by Google.

Sam Altman: President of Y Combinator

~~~
DoreenMichele
_All of the people mentioned here belong to one particular subgroup in the
US...let 's say more diversity would be a great thing here._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin)

 _Brin was born in Moscow in the Soviet Union, to Russian Jewish parents,_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Wojcicki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Wojcicki)

 _Her mother is American and Jewish, and her father is a Polish-born American_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman)

 _He was raised Jewish and is gay._

So, you listed a Russian immigrant, two women and a gay man and you claim it
lacks diversity -- because they are all apparently Caucasian and there seems
to be a common thread of being Jewish or part Jewish?

(Let's not forget rich. All the rich people are rich and it's terrible. We
should have a mix of socioeconomic groups amongst the rich. /s)

Sincere question: What kind of _lack of diversity_ are you talking about? What
would meet your definition of _diverse_?

~~~
lainga
Maybe a couple South Asian non-Jewish guys from less advantaged backgrounds?

EDIT: And, if you really want to hit it out of the park, who haven't been
either married or siblings to Anne at some point.

~~~
DoreenMichele
The interview is between Sam and Anne. I have no clue why the GP listed Anne's
sister and ex in their comment and used that as evidence of some kind of lack
of diversity. If you listed me, my sister and my ex and some guy who happened
to interview me, you could make similar assertions of lack of diversity:

"Look, Doreen is a former military wife whose father was also career military.
Her sister had the same father and ended up working for the US government as
well, though not as a military member. And the person interviewing Doreen
knows her socially because (insert connection). See? See? It's like a club or
something!"

As far as I can tell, the list is completely cherry picked and I have no idea
what the point of it was. Which is why I asked, which is looking like a
mistake.

