Anne Wojcicki on How to Build the Future | Hacker News Reader

Anne Wojcicki on How to Build the Future

blog.ycombinator.com

65 pointsjameshk40 comments

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.

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

Disclosure: Left tech for Wall Street

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

Avoid.

If you have no soft skills or business savy, you’re getting screwed either way, regardless of tech sector vs Wall Street. There are politics in every org.

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

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

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.

'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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Only if you have an appetite for cocaine

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

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.

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

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?

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.

Women.

>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.

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.

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.

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

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?

They're probably scheduled to be published.

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

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

> 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.

To play devil's advocate, Marie Curie was worse. She, her husband, her daughter, and her daughter's husband all won Nobel Prizes. Marie even won it twice in two fields.

Both Eli and Peyton won a Super Bowl. Twice.

Both were great at their game, no doubt about it. Both worked hard to get to that level, everyone at that level does. Both acknowledge the role their father played in their success.

Read the wojcicki interview again. I think you’ll notice what is missing.

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

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

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

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?

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.

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.

No, because they're closely related to each other socially, not some token crap.

"But he's gay!"

If gender, nationality of origin, immigrant status and sexual orientation are all irrelevant ...the criticism is that successful people with similar/related careers have met and sometimes worked together?

That's a little like complaining that the president has met senators.

In terms you might like better, it's like Ivanka Trump interviewing Donald at the Trump International while Jeff Sessions films them.

Is Sam Altman a blood relative of Anne's? If so, I missed that detail.

I think I'm not able to go any further than what I already wrote, I'm sorry.

Well, I'm very sorry to hear that because I'm genuinely baffled as to what your point is. As a woman who feels excluded and unable to get traction due to my gender, I was interested in what you were saying, but it fails to parse for me.

Indeed when reading Wojcicki I instantly thought of the trouble surrounding Youtube.

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