{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Breaking Precedent","title":"Breaking the Code: Anne Wojcicki on Genetics, Reinvention, and Rewriting Consumer Health","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3284,"description":"What did Anne Wojcicki see in healthcare that made her leave Wall Street and risk challenging an entire industry to put power back in patients’ hands? \n\nWelcome to the brand new season of Breaking Precedent where Leah Solivan interviews 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki about breaking medical “gatekeeping” by giving consumers direct access to their genetic information and using that data to drive research and prevention. Solivan shares learning she did not carry BRCA2 while pregnant, and Wojcicki recounts motivations shaped by her mother’s fierce self-advocacy, a Stanford community of inquiry, and an immigrant family history that emphasized purpose over materialism. After Yale (biology and a year of hockey) and a Wall Street career that exposed ethical problems in healthcare, Wojcicki drew inspiration from HIV patient advocates to build a platform for people to advocate for themselves. \n\nShe describes co-founding 23andMe in 2006 with Linda Avey and Paul Cusenza, early public skepticism, the unexpected power of ancestry, medical resistance to broad genetic testing, and how COVID-era telehealth and AI enable new prevention tools. Wojcicki explains buying 23andMe back via a nonprofit to better align incentives, scale research access, and build a subscription product integrating genetics with medical records, self-report data, wearables, and updated insights for personalized risk prediction and guidance.\n\nKey Insights\n• Questioning the status quo can become a foundation for leadership and innovation.\n• Unexpected experiences can reveal what truly matters and shape a person’s direction.\n• Advocacy can inspire people to create systems that empower others to speak for themselves.\n• Different perspectives can come together to create a more powerful and holistic idea.\n• Breaking precedent often requires challenging assumptions that others accept as normal.\n• Innovation requires understanding how people actually respond, not just what founders expect.\n• Responsible innovation...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/ZnB7esk3hxfFIoNnysnaXcdcNStXN6Vgj5GFpWxsycY/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9hZTZl/N2FhYTdlYjFlYjNj/MjZjZjU3MGMxYWM0/YWVlZC5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}