emily: she founded a genetic testing company on one big idea, to create a dna database that could move science forward. even help cure deadly diseases. in 2013, the fda yanked 23 products off the market. this as ceo anne wojcicki had to face a public divorce from her husband, sergey brin. she has made a remarkable comeback with a first fda approved consumer product.

new funding and they $1.1 billion valuation. joining me today is anne wojcicki. it's so great to have you here. the last two years have been crazy. it could have been disastrous for the company. now, you are back on good terms. how do you feel right now? anne: i feel great. i am proud of the company and what we have accomplished. when you have to slog through an d put your head down and know there is a lot of work ahead of you and you're not going to see a reward for a couple of years, it's hard. i feel like we just climbed the first flight of stairs, but we're still climbing the empire state building. there is a lot more to go. we are back on the market. we have an incredible product. we have redesigned everything. this is the first chapter and a

whole new book for 23andme. emily: you have the first fda approved consumer genetic test. that a consumer can get -- anne: consumers can buy things testsystic fibrosis without having to go through a counselor or a physician. they can buy them directly from 23andme and get that information. emily: this test for things like recessive genes. things you could pass on to your children. anne: there are things like your eye color. that teaches people about genetics and caffeine metabolism. that's really interesting. emily: i would like for you to take me back to that day when you thought that letter from the fda. anne: we were at an off-site planning for the future. we were all in great moods. we had hired a great number of

people. we had a lot of people that had started that week. what we learned is how much there was a disconnect because of what we thought we were doing and what the fda needed us to do. emily: did you think you could lose the company? anne: it took a while to understand. there were six weeks where we talked to a number of lawyers. we talked to the fda. it became clear that there were not -- there was no easy option forward. emily: did you consider selling? anne: the idea that genetic testing will be a foundation for health care in the future was core to my being. i am wedded to this company for the rest of my life and i was not interested in selling. i was not interested in closing up shop in saying this is too hard. we need to refocus. we need to hire the right people. we have a major miscommunication. we need to make sure we are

executing the right way. emily: it was an arduous process. you hired people who could better interact with washington. how did you get there? anne: picking up the phone and called everyone i knew and said who are the right lawyers to talk to in d.c.? who should i talk to? how can we figure out the past moving forward? she understood genetics. she understood the fda and added a level of structure to the company. emily: there is so much more you want to accomplish. the test for breast cancer and alzheimer's, those of not been ve not been approved. anne: that is the top my priority list. customers really want those

results. we are talking to the fda about what that path will look like to move forward. i don't have any updates. emily: you wanted to give consumers access to their own data. you have one million customers. is this the biggest dna database out there? anne: it's the biggest being used for research. what's exciting for me about what we were trying to do is the hypothesis that if we have the world's health care data and all this genetic information, everything about what you eat and exercise and your medical condition and what you respond to, we are going to understand patterns and understand the genetic basis of disease and understand the basis for why you might despond to a therapy or why you don't. -- respond to a therapy or why you don't. i walk into the physician and they say based on the data you have given us, you are a couple of years away from being diabetic. that's my hope.

you can actually have so much data and understand your predisposed risks that you can make conscious choices about what you are doing on a daily basis to mitigate those risks. emily: he has been a critical part of your story. you are divorced and you have two kids and two companies. how you go through a process like that? ♪

emily: your dad is a physics professor and your mom was an educator. tell me about your upbringing. anne: it's interesting. i grew up next to people who did not do things for money. they did things because they loved it and things that they were interested in. they were constantly questioning. the idea that you question all

the time, that is core to me. emily: your sisters are successful. how do you all relate to each other? anne: we see each other a lot. nothing has changed. my sisters are still my sisters. when they come for dinner, they steal my clothes, especially my sister susan. we see each other and events all the time. it's fun. emily: was is it about your family that raised three very successful daughters in different disciplines? anne: we take feedback very well. there are few things people can say to me that would insult me or i would take offense at. we became relatively confident in ourselves. none of us do things for the money.

we do things that we are passionate about. emily: you went to yale and majored in biology. you were also a competitive figure skater and hockey player? you went into health investing. anne: i got a job offer on wall street and i originally said no to the job. two weeks later, i called them back and said babysitting is not that interesting. emily: how did you go from wall street to silicon valley? anne: i was understanding how the health system worked. the more i dug into it, the more a record dies how much it's a -- i recognized how much it's a business. i went to one business in 2005. there were 1000 people working on how they could maximize the building outcomes for the

patients coming in so they could take in as much money as possible. the system is never going to change. that was me throwing in the towel. i believe there is such potential, the health-care and investing and is not the one i want. it was all about start of movement. the consumer has a voice. emily: at a certain point you meant sergey brin. anne: they started google in my sister's house. i could not avoid him because he was always there. we would be washing dishes and see them in the other room. they were just there. i used to hang out at google all the time. my sister was there and there was free food and it was fun. i got to know sergey. emily: what was that like being at the front line at google? anne: i think sergey and larry,

because not start it they wanted money. they had the dream of having a world of information on their laptop. they could have sold the company and then professors and life would've been good as well. i would complain to larry about the health care space and how much i felt like it was dysfunctional. you're either part of the solution or part of the problem. that was very much them. if it is bad, fix it. emily: he was predisposed to parkinson's disease. that became a critical part of the story of 23andme and how you communicated what you were trying to achieve. anne: it came out just around the time that we were starting 23andme. we were talking about getting him tested. i was talked out of it. they told me, what would you do with the information?

even if you did have it, what would you do? i found that really offensive. how dare you tell me what information is valuable for me. it should be my choice. it was convenient that we had a spectacular science team. they put the mutations we were looking for on the chip. i was looking at the kitchen table. i called one of the scientist. i think he has this mutation. his mom has two copies, is that what this means? they had not seen a lot of people that had two copies of that mutation and he had one. getting that information definitely catapulted us onto a of getting involved with michael j fox and starting the 23andme parkinson's committee. emily: you have found new aspects of parkinson's. anne: we made some headway on parkinson. we have some projects we are

thinking about doing. we are understanding the geneti+ mutations that sergey has. we are talking about some of the things we need to do. emily: sergey has been a critical part of your story. you are officially divorced. you have two kids and two companies. when there is so much wealth involved, how do you go through this process? anne: it's complicated. divorce is never easy. we are very good friends. we see each other almost on a daily basis. we are supportive of each other. it's the new reality for relationship. emily: do you have any advice from this time of your life? anne: you just have to accept that you do the best you can.

my mom would call. we just need, we just needed the ice cream. there are moments when it's hard. you do the best that you can do. part of it is being gentle on yourself. you can't do everything. part of what i think we have done really well, you optimize finding the best in everyone and focus on the friendship. emily: you live in the silicon valley. the bubble. you seem so normal. how do you stay normal? anne: you stay focused on the things that are important. i volunteer at school. i make sure that the kids do their homework. i see my family all the time. i still see all of my friends. emily: you have this issue with women and technology. how much progress have you seen and how much needs to be done? anne: there is an imbalance and it needs to change. it's a 10 year issue.

i think we are also getting ethnic diversity. you don't have to be the best at something in order to have an impact area everyone is really good at something. it's important that women know what kind of roles they can have. one of the parts of my job is not to be intimidated. there are men and women and then you try to work with the men and women. there can be men and women who are a pain you don't want to work with third try to find those people who are going to support you. emily: what do you think about the situation that is an old and -- that is unfolding? ♪

emily: i do want to talk about your dealings with the fda. what do you think about elizabeth holmes? in the situation that is unfolding? anne: i have spent a lot of time

with her. i have a lot of respect or her -- for her and her mission. i have stayed out of knowing the details of it. i think health care is changing quite a bit. people are always going to be skeptical. the onus is on us to be very transparent. emily: i understand what she is trying to do. after 12 years, should it be more involved at this point? anne: i can walk into any center and i don't need a physician. i can just get my information. i think people just want to see and understand the technology and understand the data. people are making life-and-death calls based on this data. they want to understand the why. how these things are happening. emily: this is a $10 billion company. do you think it's a fraud? anne: i'm sure it's possible. everything i know, she works incredibly hard.

i have seen her discipline and how much she is working. i'm not close enough to the company to know about the tech knowledge he. -- the technology. it's what everybody wants to know. everybody is excited about the potential and what that technology actually is. emily: how you walk that line between your trade secrets and being transparent? anne: she is not required to have the transparency people are asking for. that's part of the disconnect. the fda has put out guidance, they are trying to regulate the industry. if that is the call they are making, it will be good to have that same transparency across all diagnostics. when you are in a crisis, it's hard to ever evaluate. you guys are all digging in. when you are executing and you have more approvals, the things will speak to the reality.

right now, there is a lot of discussion. emily: let's talk about the future of 23andme. you share data with pfizer. the goal is to incorporate the data into drug discovery. how is the drug invention program going? anne: i love it. i am excited about it. for people who have a disease, parkinson's is obviously one. or multiple sclerosis or chronic fatigue or any of these autoimmune diseases, if we can use this data to translate that into something meaningful, that's ace tactile or reward for -- that is a spectacular reward for our customers. emily: i know you are doing a lot of work on lupus. anne: we are working on lupus with pfizer. we have a number of partnerships we are doing with pharma companies. lupus and inflammatory owl -- bowl disease and parkinson's,

we are about to launch a few others. emily: are you going to do human testing yourself here? anne: it will react best if we come to them with a target. there will be a compound with some clinical background, some data about how that's functioning. there is a higher likelihood of success if we can come with that level of information and move that forward. emily: you would do human testing here? anne: we would start doing some of our own clinical research for sure. emily: there is ancestry, they do some similar things. they have a partnership with calico. do you see google and calico as competition? anne: no. everything here is based on in with the consumer

and making engaging products for them. calico is focused on anti-aging. i wish these companies well. i think it will expand the entire industry. i want to translate this information into useful therapeutics. i want to come and say we developed the cure for lupus. when i think about my success moment, it will be when we have that kind of care that game -- cure that came because millions of people shared their data. we were able to create something. that to me is great. emily: any plans to go public? anne: i am not opposed to it at some point, it's a matter of finding the right time. we will definitely figure that out. there are pros and cons. emily: is there anything you would have done differently? anne: we hired andy page. the almost hired him five years earlier, we should have.

we would've been much better. there would have been easier business models than what we chose to do. we believe in what we are doing and it's going to have a massive impact on society. when we started the company, we had the lone voice. "own your data." it would echo. the fact that it's there, it's happening and i see the world where like 1996 when the internet was just starting, this is virgin territory. it's all starting to sprout up. i think there can be this consumer health care world that is just spectacular and creates something parallel to the existing world. it is super complementary, but it reflects what the actually that's what we -- reflects what we actually want for our health

care. emily: thank you so much for joining me. anne: thanks to you. ♪

>> every year around november or december, many journalists will get an assignment that makes them feel a little nervous. >> you are putting me on the spot. >> they will be asked to write a story about what will happen in the coming year. the worstst dana -- thing that a journalist can do is predict the future. >> we thought about the latest developmentsed