Anne Wojcicki on How to Build the Future

Anne Wojcicki on How to Build the Future(blog.ycombinator.com)

65 points by jameshk 8 years ago | 40 comments

pdog 8 years ago |

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.

toomuchtodo 8 years ago | |

You also have a greater chance of making significantly more than your startup equity would ever be worth.

Disclosure: Left tech for Wall Street

swedish_mafia 8 years ago | | |

You also have a greater chance of being significantly screwed over if your core skill is technology and not playing the politics.

Avoid.

nugi 8 years ago | |

There has always been a perception amoung many techies and ents that "wall street" represented the old, entrenched, 'rent-seeking' capitolism, while SV style was 'changing the world', dispuptive, and somehow more egalitarian. It seems to mirror the political divide somewhat, with many younger more visionary types going for broke out west, and the more risk adverse finding a reliable income in finance. Its a matter of perspective as much as philosophy.

marzell 8 years ago | | |

'Silicon Valley' and 'Wall Street' have become sort of extreme synecdoches that carry tons of baggage when used. While often useful, I find they are becoming increasingly disingenuous in regards to current state or at least in regards to the way things are changing for the better (in contrast to the negative meanings implied when one of these terms are used as a derogative).

jacquesm 8 years ago | |

It's hilarious in a way because every starter-upper would like to see their company listed at the stock exchange at some point. IPOs are so much more gratifying that acqui-hires.

ll931110 8 years ago | |

The weather in East Coast turned me away. (background: I lived in East Coast for 4.5 years and went through several terrible winters)

matte_black 8 years ago | |

If I was starting over I’d pursue Wall Street over Silicon Valley.

resource0x 8 years ago | | |

at least, you won't have to pretend it's all about making the world a better place :) (Or will you, anyway? Not sure)

swedish_mafia 8 years ago | |

Its fun being a cost center where having friends in the business side of things is what counts for career progress?

danharaj 8 years ago | |

Only if you have an appetite for cocaine

marssaxman 8 years ago | |

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 8 years ago | | |

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.

projectileboy 8 years ago |

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 8 years ago | |

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

mychael 8 years ago |

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 8 years ago | |

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.

jasonvorhe 8 years ago | |

Women.

Uhhrrr 8 years ago |

>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.

wiz21c 8 years ago |

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 8 years ago | |

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.

fyrstenberg 8 years ago |

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...

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

BIackSwan 8 years ago |

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 8 years ago | |

They're probably scheduled to be published.

gnicholas 8 years ago |

> that's the thing about 'overnight success'—ten years of persistence

berg01 8 years ago |

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...

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