Google employees must avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, according to the company's code of conduct. But Sergey Brin is exempt from such bureaucratic trifles. The cofounder skirted ethical lines when he loaned money to 23andMe, a genetic-testing startup cofounded by his wife, Anne Wojcicki, and…
Designers, want to torture yourself in a contract position surrounded by smarmy, know-it-all PhDs who give you only the vaguest of instructions and expect you to master the intricacies of biotechnology overnight? Lured by the promise that you might one day get hired on full-time and get stock options at a company…
Not a good week for the Wojcicki family. Googler Susan Wojcicki has been caught making expensive demands on Google's daycare facilities. Meanwhile, her sister Anne, wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin, is fending off cease-and-desist letters from pesky health regulators. Anne's company, Google-backed 23andMe, was…
CARLSBAD, CA — Who are those cool cats in sunglasses at D6? Why, it's Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, a board member at Facebook, lunching with Wendi Murdoch, wife of the News Corp. CEO and chairwoman of MySpace China. Also at the table: Martha Stewart, seen here to the left; Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures; and Anne…
Facing possible fines and jail time, local gene sequencers Navigenics and 23andMe will have to get permits if they want to continue testing resident of New York state. Meanwhile, California is investigating 12 complaints against unnamed gene sequencing companies, with officials noting that "all genetic tests must be…
Personal gene sequencing is all the rage among technophiles. But the medical establishment isn't necessarily on board — for starters, no insurance company will cover the cost, and doctors aren't always prepared to appropriately evaluate the results of a test. In an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine,…
We learned a lot about TechCrunch's Michael Arrington yesterday. Writing about his 23andMe genetics profile, we now know he is quite tall, has a lower than normal chance of getting Type II diabetes and has wet earwax. Lovely. We also know that Michael Arrington is single, something he blames us for. Sorry, buddy.…
With the launch of Google's health data service, we're going to set aside our skepticism for a moment and think about what this could potentially mean for society. Nah, screw society — for me personally. Google cofounder Sergey Brin invested in his wife's genetics research startup. 23andMe takes cheek swabs from…
23andMe, the genetics startup cofounded by Anne Wojcicki and Linda Avey, has outed TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington as a cheapskate. When Arrington discovered that 23andMe was handing out its $999 testing "Spit Kits" for free at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he hit up Wojcicki and Avey for a refund on the…
Wired 15.12 comes in at two pounds, half the weight of a September Vogue. Most of it's the water weight of ads and a shopping guide, and I've summarized the meat of the issue in 1,200 words, so now you don't need to pick it up and risk ergonomic injury.
Google cofounder Sergey Brin's wife, Anne Wojcicki, cofounded and helps run a company called 23andMe. Since Google conveniently invested in 23andMe earlier this year, repaying a loan Brin made to the company, Google shareholders might want to keep a close eye on it to make sure everything is on the up and up. But…
What are Sergey Brin and Larry Page really obsessed about? Look no further than their choice in lifemates, says Attila Csordas. Sergey Brin married 23andMe cofounder Anne Wojcicki — and also lent the company $2.6 million, which Google repaid when it invested $3.9 million in the company. Larry Page's fiancée, Lucy…
J. Craig Venter is the scientist whose startup beat the government-funded Human Genome Project to mapping a single person's entire DNA. Whose DNA? Duh, Venter's! On the last morning of the Web 2.0 Summit, Venter brought the audience up to date on the faster-than-Moore's-Law advances in reading and writing genes.
Say what you want about the alleged nepotism behind 23andme, but this genetics startup founded by Anne Wojcicki (recently married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin) sounds sweet. According to Forbes, clients send in a cheek swab, get back info on their DNA, including information on their ancestry and even distant…
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. I'm not sure if Euripides, the Greek playwright, had Google's management team in mind when he wrote that, but it sure fits. Google, despite the occasional lost deal, billion-dollar lawsuit, and PR black eye, continues to succeed spectacularly as a business. "Somehow…
As new husband Sergey Brin stands watch, 23andMe's Anne Wojcicki, recently married to the Google cofounder, shows photos from her recent wedding to home-style guru Martha Stewart, at this weekend's Science Foo Camp nerdfest. No wedding bells, at the moment, for Stewart, who's merely going steady with early Microsoft…
The Valley styles itself as gay-friendly. But how many queer venture capitalists can you think of? Here's a sign, in the month of gay pride, of change in the wind: NEA's Patrick Chung recently held a commitment ceremony with partner Matthew Burt, a church choir director. After the jump, more on Chung and Burt's…
TIM FAULKNER — Fortune reports that Anne Wojcicki's 23 And Me, a genetic genealogy startup, is getting press attention for something other than her billionaire husband, Sergey Brin, and connections to his company, Google. The firm has determined that Warren Buffett, billionaire investor and philanthropist, and Jimmy…
