Anne Wojcicki is the co-founder and CEO of the popular at-home genetics testing company 23andMe. She earned a B.S. in biology from Yale University, spent a decade as a researcher and investment analyst, and then started her DNA testing company in 2006.
23andMe sells easy home saliva swab test kits and offers analysis to help users learn more about their family trees and predispositions to genetic disorders and diseases. Finding biological relatives is useful to those who have been adopted, but also to anyone who has unanswered questions about their ancestry.
Her elder sister, Susan who was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of YouTube stepped down from the position in 2023. She was one of the earliest employees of Google, Susan Wojcicki has managed to have both a thriving family life and a wildly successful career. Wojcicki’s name is well known for her contributions to the tech space, and she’s in good company.
On February 16, 2023, Susan Wojcicki announced her departure from YouTube after leading the platform as its CEO for nine years. The “personal update from Susan” was initially sent to YouTube staff earlier that morning, but was publicly posted to the site a short while later. In the update, Wojcicki revealed her reasons for stepping down from YouTube, claiming that she wants to focus on her personal life and family, as well as a few passion projects in the interim.
In wake of Susan’s departure from YouTube, many are asking about her youngest sister and her business. TheVibely.com has gathered 10 facts about Anne Wojcicki including her fortune, her achievement, her husband, siblings, and kids.
Anne E. Wojcicki is an American entrepreneur who co-founded and serves as CEO of the personal genomics company 23andMe. She founded the company in 2006 with Linda Avey and Paul Cusenza to provide the general public access to their genetic information. She is a co-founder and board member of the Breakthrough Prize.
Wojcicki has been a guest “shark” on the ABC reality show Shark Tank.
Currently, Wojcicki lives and works in Los Altos, Calif.
Anne Wojcicki (real name Anne E. Wojcicki) was born in Palo Alto, California, United States on July 28, 1973. This currently puts her age at age 49 years.
Anne was born to well-to-do parents. Former YouTube CEO Susan Diane Wojcicki was born to Esther Wojcicki, an American journalist, and Stanley Wojcicki, a Polish physics professor at Stanford University.
Her maternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants. Her paternal grandfather, Franciszek Wójcicki, was a Polish politician who had been elected MP during the 1947 Polish legislative election. Her paternal grandmother, Janina Wójcicka Hoskins, was a Polish-American librarian at the Library of Congress and was responsible for building the largest collection of Polish material in the U.S.
Anne is not an only child of her scholar parents. Anne’s two sisters-siblings are all successful in their careers; one is former YouTube CEO and the other a doctor.
She has two sisters: Janet Wojcicki, a doctor of anthropology and epidemiology, and Susan, the former CEO of YouTube who stepped down in 2023 for Neal Mohan to replace him in the position.
Wojcicki played ice hockey growing up – she told Fast Company in 2013 that she switched to the sport after figure skating “started to be a little bit like Honey Boo Boo on ice” – and later attended Yale University. She graduated in 1996 with a biology degree, according to The New York Times.
Post-graduation, Wojcicki began working for a biotech-related hedge fund. She told Fast Company that her academic parents were offended by the choice.
“It was always embarrassing to come home. People were like, ‘Oh, Anne, you Wall Street girl,'” she told Fast Company.
Wojcicki worked on Wall Street for about a decade as a healthcare analyst at firms including Investor AB and Passport Capital.
Wojcicki founded 23andMe in 2006 with co-founder Linda Avey. In 2008, TIME Magazine named the company’s Personal Genome Service as its Invention of the Year.
23andMe sells easy home saliva swab test kits and offers analysis to help users learn more about their family trees and predispositions to genetic disorders and diseases. Finding biological relatives is useful to those who have been adopted, but also to anyone who has unanswered questions about their ancestry.
Helping people make healthier decisions based on genetic analysis is one of the company’s key goals. Identifying potential carriers of genetic disorders could be lifesaving for some users. Wojcicki said in a press release, “We have a huge opportunity to help personalize the entire experience at scale, allowing individuals to be more proactive about their health and wellness.”
The company has faced some challenges along the way. The mission of making genetic information more widely available to the paying public has met some scrutiny. People worry about data security and who can access their genetic information after 23andMe receives it. The company states that customers can opt out of sharing their data or participating in research.
Those who have had their swabs tested by 23andMe can choose to be part of ongoing research by answering survey questions. The company combines user survey responses with genetic data to help drive scientific and medical breakthroughs.
In 2018, GlaxoSmithKline purchased a $300 million stake in the company, which meant the pharmaceutical giant had access to genetic data to develop new treatments.
This week, 23andMe announced that it will be going public through a SPAC. VG Acquisition Corp. is the SPAC owned by Sir Richard Branson, the billionaire entrepreneur who also founded the space exploration company Virgin Galactic.
Once the merger with the SPAC is finalized, 23andMe’s current shareholders will own 81 percent of the combined company.
Wojcicki was married to Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google in the Bahamas, from 2007 to 2015. The couple had two kids together whose last name is Wojin, a portmanteau of their parents’ last names and they continue to run their foundation jointly.
Wojcicki met Brin through her sister, Susan: In 1998, Susan Wojcicki rented Brin and Google co-founder Larry Page her garage in Menlo Park, California, in order to work on their young company, Google.
While they were dating, Brin would leave Anne Wojcicki notes in Braille about where to meet or leave her voicemails in Morse code, Wojcicki told The New York Times in 2017.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, guests weren’t told the location of the wedding and were instead flown to the Bahamas on the jet owned by Page and Brin. Once there, they were taken by boat to a sandbar where the ceremony was held – Wojcicki and Brin wore white and black swimsuits, respectively, and swam out to the ceremony site.
Wojcicki and Brin separated in 2013 and divorced in 2015. It later came out that around the time of the separation, Brin started an affair with a Google employee in her mid-20s, who was also in a relationship with another high-level Google executive at the time.
Wojcicki told The Times that one person who helped her through her divorce from Brin was Ivanka Trump, who she described as “super-supportive.”
Together with ex-husband Sergey Brin, Wojcicki founded the Brin Wojcicki Foundation in 2004. Previously, it was known as the Brin Foundation. It’s a private organization that provides grants.
The couple met through friends around 2015 and dated for about two years.
Wojcicki told The Times in 2017 that Alex Rodriguez was “a really sweet guy,” smart, and a good person, but that their respective parenting obligations and lives on opposite coasts made the relationship unsustainable.
Wojcicki’s mom, Esther, told The Times that while she liked Rodriguez, the pairing was “a mismatch.”
“He had no academic background. We couldn’t have an intellectual conversation about anything,” Esther Wojcicki said. “I wish J-Lo all the luck in the world.”
Wojcicki is also fitness-obsessed, riding her Peloton bike, taking two daily walks, and doing online yoga classes during the pandemic. Forbes wrote in 2019 that 23andMe’s headquarters “looks like a cross between a Silicon Valley startup and a fitness club.”
The success of 23andMe has paid off handsomely for its CEO. Wojcicki had an estimated net worth of $500 million in October 2020 — down from $690 million in June 2019. Currently, Forbes estimates Anne Wojcicki’s net worth at $300 million while Celebrity Net Worth pegs her fortune at $800 million.
Wojcicki is a top Silicon Valley executive with plenty of powerful connections. Her older sister, Susan, is the current CEO of YouTube. Wojcicki was named to two Forbes lists in 2020: #93 on the Power Women list and #49 on America’s Self-Made Women.
She co-founded 23andMe in 2006 after a decade spent in healthcare, focusing primarily on biotechnology companies.
Brin is worth $84.8 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, but Wojcicki told The Times in 2017 that she’s not a fan of “fancy cars and houses and the right dress.” She sometimes has her kids sleep in their clothes to save time in the mornings and wear their clothes into the shower on trips to save on hotel laundry costs.
She said at the time that she cuts her kids’ hair herself, mostly shops at Payless for shoes, and rides her bike to work.
“It’s so easy to be like, ‘I don’t have to do laundry again. I don’t have to cook again.’ But then you’re not normal,” she told The Times.
Instagram: @annewoj23
Twitter: @annewoj23
Website: 23andme.com
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