OpenAI and Anthropic’s Tumultuous Week, the Global Memory Chip Crunch and 23andMe’s Non-Profit Plan

14:57Martin Peers:Yeah, great question. So we underwrite each investment and we look for a couple things. Do we believe this is a technology leader in their space? We want to be in the winners over the long term. Second, we look at the long term IRRs, what do we believe they can do over multiple years? And then we also listen to our customers. We understand what kind of names they're interested in. And when we talk to them, they look at AI names, names that are consumer branded, names that they think are leaders in the category. So it's a little bit of tops down. What are we hearing from customers? What do we think is interesting?

15:25Martin Peers:Then we bottoms up, underwrite each name.

15:27Laura Mandaro:Okay. So in other words, it's actually been managed like a venture fund in terms of you have investors that are choosing one company over the other strategically.

15:36Martin Peers:Oh, 100%. Yeah. So we brought in-house a seasoned portfolio manager. Her name is Sarah Pinto. She was previously a growth investor in Silicon Valley and had invested in many of these great names. And so she's built out an investment team and we are actively going out and sourcing and talking to companies and underwriting them and then choosing which names we think are the best fit for the customer and in the portfolio.

15:54Laura Mandaro:Okay, and then so mechanically then when these companies do go public, if they do go public, then what happens to the weightings of the fund and how do those returns come back to the investors then?

16:06Martin Peers:Yeah, great question. So the beauty of a closed-end fund is you can buy them when they're private, you can buy the IPO, and you can actually hold or buy more of them when they're public. So even when they go public, we'll continue to underwrite them. If we choose to sell the investment, we then take the realized gains and 90 % of it gets distributed to the shareholders and back to customers. And so the beauty of the fund is also they get great tax advantage. And so the fund itself doesn't get taxed and the customer doesn't pay the double taxation. So big picture, if a company goes public and we choose to sell, we distribute most of the gains out to customers and then they can choose to do what they would like with it.

16:40Laura Mandaro:Now, I'm curious about your perspective as a CFO on this issue of when to go public, if to go public. I mean, you have companies in this portfolio that can raise money and have shown they can raise money in the private markets and satisfy their capital requirements there. And, you know, look, it depends. You have to be a best in class company to do that if you need to get the capital that you can get. But is there still value in going public today? Do you think I'm asking you as a CFO, if you could just get the money in the private markets for some of these top names?

17:16Martin Peers:Great question. We believe that every company, in particular, the best in class companies should be public for a few reasons. One, the U.S. public equities market is the deepest pool and deepest pool of capital in the world. So while, yes, many of these companies can raise private capital that only goes so far, the public markets is 10 to 100 times and larger. And on top of that, for the category of companies that are even one tier below, they might not have access to these same pools of capital. So we think everybody should be public. I also think that it brings discipline. You asked me what I believe is my CFO hat.

17:48Martin Peers:We build for the long term. We said we don't make decisions on a quarterly basis, but being in the public eye, it forces you to prioritize, it forces you to be disciplined, and it brings you to be more mature. And so in order to access bigger pools of capital and understand what it means to be public and the discipline it brings, I actually think it's a great thing for many of these companies to go public. And then lastly, I'll add, it does bring a new base. So retail is 25 % of the U.S. equities public markets today. And so going public also allows some of these best-in-class companies to share the gains with their underlying retail consumer as well.

18:18Laura Mandaro:Now, how do you square that then with the way that IPOs as of late have fared? I mean, you look at some of the new issues and says not every tech company has done as well as they would have hoped, I think, out of the gate. And, you know, we've got this market volatility. I mean, how do you then square that with, I don't even want to deal with the volatility. Maybe it's better just to be private.

18:42Martin Peers:Yeah, it's a great question. In the short term, you do have to deal with the volatility. And we're 100 % acknowledge that. I think over the longer term, if you are public, though, you will see the gains come back and continue to confine. And so, while it might be nice to hide in the private markets and not have to deal with the public markets coming in actually brings, like I mentioned, the discipline before. So if you look at Robinhood's own history, we went public and similar to many others, when markets were volatile, we went down. And today we're now a$70 billion S &P 500 public company. And it's because we went through the journey, we've been through the ups and downs.

19:15Martin Peers:And so, yeah, it's different, but I do think it's actually better for the company to see what they're worth in the light of day.

19:20Laura Mandaro:So when you look at the stock prices then of companies that have gone public, tech companies in the last six months and you look at the way those have fared, that doesn't concern you then because that was basically the path that you're saying Robin had.

19:32Martin Peers:Yeah, it's in the short term. So you may have some short term volatility. I don't think you should judge any IPO until it's been three, five, even 10 years. And so for many of these companies, they're focused on their customers. They're continuing to build. And if they do well, they will eventually be valued appropriately. If there's volatility in the short term, that's the nature of public markets. There's always someone who wants to buy and always someone who wants to sell. But if I were them, the same thing that happened to Robinhood, I would focus on the customer. I'd focus on the long-term and then I'd look out three, five years and then see how they did.

20:01Right.

20:02Laura Mandaro:I want to ask you about prediction markets, which is another exciting area that Robinhood is wading deeper into. On the business side of things, I mean, you guys have said that you did$300 million in annualized revenue in your first year for prediction markets. How much are you projecting it's going to be this year?

20:21Martin Peers:Yeah, so we haven't given a forecast for the actual production. We said we ended last year about 300 million. It's a great business. It's great for customers. It brings access. If you look at our most recent quarter, we did over 1.3 billion of revenue. So annualized about 5 billion. So while it's, you know, 300 million substantial, it's still a relatively smaller portion of our overall business. But for us, the reason we like it is, it is a new asset class. We believe we're at the super cycle of prediction markets. We're just getting started. And most importantly, we're giving customers what they want.

20:51Martin Peers:want and access to this brand new emerging asset class.

20:53Laura Mandaro:What percent of your overall revenue do you think prediction markets could be?

20:59Martin Peers:You know, we usually don't forecast that out. Again, like what I said, it's a relatively small portion of today. I don't mind if a larger portion is equities trading or options trading or from net interest revenue. For us, and again, it sounds like a brokered record, if you really focus on the customer, if you focus on the inputs and build great products, then the outputs of revenue will take care of themselves. And so prediction markets is great. And if it chooses to be a larger portion over time, fantastic. With crypto right now, you know, there's a lot of volatility in the market. We still are building.

21:28Martin Peers:We think it's great. It's about 18 % of our revenue. So relatively small in the overall portion. But big picture things will cycle over time. Sometimes it'll be brokerage. Sometimes it'll be crypto. Sometimes it'll be prediction markets. We've also said we've been diversifying. So we have 11 business lines that do over 100 million of ARR today. And so as you keep building more and more of these products, again, you take care of the customers, and then you'll see it in the outputs of revenue.

21:51Laura Mandaro:You have 11 businesses doing 100 million.

21:53Martin Peers:What's going to be the 12th? So we said on our last earnings call, there's two that are getting really close. Robinhood Legend, which is our web product, and the Robinhood Gold Card, the first credit card we launched. We actually just announced a Platinum Card a few days ago to our new two events. So between the GMs internally, we have some competition to who's going to get there first. But I think Robinhood Legend and the Robinhood Gold Card are the next up in line.

22:14Laura Mandaro:Now, we had Steve Quirk, your chief brokerage officer, on the show a couple months ago, and we were talking about prediction markets. And I asked him about insider trading and some of the concerns that were coming to light in the industry. And the point that he made is that, look, we've been monitoring stuff like this in stock trading and crypto trading, etc. We've been doing this for a long time. And so that's sort of what sets Robinhood up for success. With prediction markets, have you guys caught anyone insider trading? Have you flagged anything?

22:45Martin Peers:You know, our teams are always monitoring everything. I think the main thing that Steve Quirk said, which is right, we take legal and compliance incredibly seriously. We know how to be regulated. We believe it's a moat. And so I love the asset class in the industry. And I think the best thing to help it grow is to do things the right way, to do it with integrity, whether it's what you list or monitoring insider trading. And so while the asset class is emerging, we do think that structure is important. So 100 % agree. And that's how we build all of our products.

23:13Laura Mandaro:But have you caught anyone?

23:16Martin Peers:I don't know if we've shared anything publicly, but just in general, the way we do it is we monitor it. We KYC. We have AML on these folks. We have listing committees looking at the types of contracts. And so the same way we would do any other product, we use our technology plus our in-house team to make sure we're monitoring it. And if we do flag anything, we'll always make sure to do it appropriately. But for us, we think it is important for the industry to be regulated. and we believe that's actually one of our strains.

23:41Laura Mandaro:Now, coming back to your CFO role, how fast is the company planning to grow headcount this year in 2026?

23:49Martin Peers:Yeah, so I said on our most recent earnings call that we expect to go overall expenses by about 18%, and we expect to be profitable growth, meaning growing revenue faster than expenses. On headcount, we usually say we grow in kind of the mid-single digits, kind of in that area. And so the beauty of being a technology company is you don't need to add a lot of headcount. You can continue to build with software developers, you continue to use AI and automation, and you can take those cost savings and pass them on to the customers in terms of great value.

24:18Laura Mandaro:And on the AI piece, are you stripping out any of that enterprise software that people are saying you can do if you're using AI?

24:27Martin Peers:So we are using AI 100%. We've actually been one of the early adopters in this. When Enterprise Chat GPT came out in early 22, Sam was on the phone with Vlad very, very early on, and we wanted to be a customer. And so we give our developers access to all the best in class tools. And we've shared a few things with us. So we sent our last earnings call. The savings has been over nine figures in terms of what we're seeing from some of the AI adoption tools we use. We put into three big buckets. The first is development. So all of our software developers have great access to tools. All of our non-software developers were really making a push in-house to give our employees tools and education.

25:02Martin Peers:The second is operational. And so customer service, we were early to automate this. We've said publicly 75 % of our customer service tickets are now answered by AI, and that continues to get better and better. So that's a big area we're investing in. And the last is for customers. So we have our product called Cortex, which is our AI assistant. The first thing we have is you can go into any stock and AI will summarize why it's moving. We then built, you can go into your portfolio and it'll give you a summary of your overall portfolio. And then we announced most recently in December an AI assistant.

25:30Martin Peers:You can go into the app and actually talk to it and help you do it. So we're using AI across all three of those vectors.

25:34Laura Mandaro:But maybe this is a good place to leave this. You know, I do want to get your view on the AI eating SaaS, killing SaaS, replacing SaaS. I mean, you are in charge of signing off on these contracts at the end of the day. Do you think it, I mean, you can't really just take out an entire Salesforce function, can you? You know, what's your view on it?

25:59Martin Peers:I think it's a little bit overblown, to be honest. I think there are tools that are still very valuable. Tools of record, as you mentioned, whether it's something like Workday or something internally that tracks things, there's always a matter of prioritization. So when we look at our engineers, I'd rather have them focus on customer-facing products rather than trying to rebuild other enterprise SaaS companies that we use. It doesn't mean that it won't be that way forever. We're always talking to new companies. We're looking what's out there. But I think a lot of the companies that have built these great products and moats, we're going to continue to use them.

26:30Martin Peers:and then we're going to focus our developers using AI tools to build even more and more for customers. And so that's what we're seeing thus far.

26:36Laura Mandaro:And so the nine figures in cost savings, that comes from not having to hire as many people?

26:41Martin Peers:Yes, that's the main thing. And so if you look at our volumes from last year, volumes grew 40 to 50%, but headcount, as I mentioned, grew in the mid-single digits. And so the counterfactual is you would have had to hire a lot more people to build it. We're actually just taking those savings and reinvesting the business. So people ask, hey, how does Robinhood ship so fast? Well, we have great GMs who are always focused on it. We have great productivity tools, and then we take those investments and we keep investing in new products. So instead of just passing it on as additional cost savings, we're using it to reinvest in the business.

27:10Laura Mandaro:And what about layoffs? I mean, are you concerned at the narrative here that we could see layoffs? And how are you thinking about managing your own headcount?

27:18Martin Peers:Yeah, it's always something we're watching. In 2022, Robinhood went through its own restructuring, but we are very lean today. I think the best thing you can do is just run a lean and discipline cost structure, which is one of our values. And then you don't have to worry about this. For us, I feel really great. There are a couple of companies in the markets that we've seen. I think some of them are using AI as a headline to kind of say, hey, this is why we're doing it. And they may have been a little bit overstaffed to begin with. But for us, we run lean and discipline. We're always looking at ways to grow.

27:46Martin Peers:But I'd rather take those cost savings and reinvest in the business and just run an overall lean business to begin with.

27:51Laura Mandaro:Great. Well, Shiv, I want to thank you for coming on. It's an exciting day. I'll let you get back to the action at NYSEE. That is Shiv Varma, the CFO of Robinhood, here on TIT. A global memory chip shortage is pushing China's biggest tech firms to source more from domestic suppliers. That is according to a new exclusive story out of the Information's Asia Bureau. I want to play for you a conversation that Jing Yang, our Asia Bureau chief, had with Chen Er Liu, our reporter who wrote that story. Here is that conversation.

28:23Qianer Liu:Hi, Chenna. As we know, the global memory chip shortage has been affecting tech companies almost everywhere. How have Chinese tech giants from Alibaba to Biden to Tencent been reacting to this shortage based on new reporting? We published an exclusive story this week right at this front. we are seeing a very interesting shift right now. For example, Alibaba, Biden's, and Tencent, all three of China's biggest tech powerhouses are actively turning to Chinese memory chip makers to looking for memory chips to power their data sensors. So here's some context. So as AI models get bigger and more complicated and more people use them, the membership demand is exploding.

29:15Qianer Liu:So every single chatbot prompts, every AI query requires membership. And China, with over a billion internet users, it's feeling the pressure faster than almost anywhere else in the world. So what these Chinese big tech companies have done is to reach initial agreement on pricing, on volume, and on quality with China's two biggest memory chip makers, which is Yangtze Memory Technologies, known as YMTC, and Changxin Memory Technology, or CSMT. Central to these deals are a commitment on future purchase orders, giving the Chinese chip makers some certainty that they need to expand their factories.

30:05Qianer Liu:Right, so let me just make sure I get acronyms correct. YMTC and CXMT are the two leading memory chip suppliers in China. I have a feeling we might start hearing these two acronyms more frequently. But let's start from the basics. Why haven't Chinese tech companies previously been procuring more from YMTC and CXMT? That's a good question. Historically, Chinese memory chip industry was seen as an underdog or also run, well behind Samsung and SK Hynix of South Korea and Americans' Micron. So Chinese tech firms simply prefer sourcing from the global tech leader, global memory leader for reliability and production scale.

30:57Qianer Liu:But that play ball has broken down on two fronts. First, American Micron has effectively been shut down of China since 2023 because of the escalating US and China tension. So that's one global supplier gone. Secondly, Samsung and SK Hynix are still operating in China, but they are turning down requests for more supply to Chinese companies. because all three tech memory makers, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, they are now shifting the bulk of their production to something called as High Bandwidth Memory or HBM, which is the premium stack chips that power cutting edge AI processors such as those from NVIDIA, like NVIDIA's Blackwell or Rubin GPU.

31:55Qianer Liu:So this kind of production strategy is squeezing the availability of standard memory chips. So Chinese tech companies aren't turning to local supplier out of nationalism. So they are doing it because they have been effectively left without better options. So I noticed you said standard memory chips. What are those standard memory chips? And can those two Chinese manufacturers make them? Are they good enough? That's where it gets nuanced. I would say, honestly, that's the most important question for the long term. YMTC mainly means NAMM, M-A-M-D. Those are the chips that can store data for long term.

32:46Qianer Liu:And CSMT means DRAMM, D-R-A-M. They are the chips that can like temporary store chips for active use usage. So the good news for Chinese chip makers is that they have been making process in their memory chip making technology and they are closing the gap. That means that and also the products, their products follow industry wise specification. That means a chip from Chinese maker could be swapped in for one from other companies such as Samsung and Micron of the same generation. But there's also a challenge. So both YMTC and CSNT are state-owned and have received billions in government funding.

33:36Qianer Liu:And they are the core part of Beijing's push for semiconductor cell sufficiency. But they are operating under a huge handicap because US, Japan and Netherlands have all restricted export of the most advanced chip making tools to China. So that limits how fast and how far YMTC and CSMT can scale up and improve their chip making technologies. So I would say the honest answer is the capacity is growing and these new purchase commitments from Alibaba, Biden and Tencent will help support all these two chip makers expansion. But stepping back to the restrictions you mentioned from US, Japan, and Netherlands on chip making tools, this is a part of US-led export control or semiconductor technology embargo against China.

34:38Qianer Liu:Right. So then I guess then a bigger question is, can the two Chinese memory makers actually have enough capacity in the foreseeable future to supply this sudden rising demand from Chinese companies? I would say, like I mentioned before, obviously the capacity is growing due to all these fundings and support from Chinese government. But these US-led export controls are setting the real ceiling of how quickly these two domestic memory chip makers can ramp up, given the technology restrictions they are working around. I see. I see. But why can't the Chinese company just go to the 2 ,000 current companies, Samsung and SK Hynnings, asking for them to supply more of those standard memory chips?

35:38Qianer Liu:I know you mentioned that they are prioritizing HBM. Is that the only reason? Because that would affect the supply that they can have to, say, American tech companies too. This is definitely not the only reason. In fact, Balibaba, Bydance and Tencent had repeatedly went to Samsung and SK Hynix in the recent months and trying to ask for more supply. But these two South Korean companies have been prioritizing the order from U.S. companies such as Microsoft, Meta, and Google, which are also hungers for all these memory chips. I see. I see. Well, thank you very much, Cher. It's definitely a fascinating and developing story.

36:31Qianer Liu:And I'm sure that you will continue to report on this. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

36:40Laura Mandaro:That was Jing Yang and Chenner Liu from our Asia Bureau here on TIT. 23andMe is a Silicon Valley name many of us might recognize. For the longest time, it has been the convenient DNA testing service that can tell you not just where your ancestors have come from, but also what kind of medical issues you might be predisposed to. That company has been through a bit of a rocky history. Last year, it filed for bankruptcy, but Anne Wojcicki, the company's founder, has since bought it back and has a revised plan for a new iteration of the company's strategy. That is the subject of this weekend's big read.

37:17Laura Mandaro:Amy Doxler-Marcus, our health and science reporter, actually had a chance to sit down with Wojcicki to discuss her new vision for the first time since she took back over the reins. I want to bring on Amy to tell us more about what she found. Amy, welcome back to the show. It's so great to have you here.

37:31Jing Yang:Yeah, it's nice to be here.

37:34Laura Mandaro:I have to tell you, I was so excited that this was our big read this weekend because 23andMe is a company that has fascinated me for so long. And I have to tell you, I actually have never done it. Did you ever get the service done?

37:48Jing Yang:I have not taken a consumer DNA test, which you might find interesting given that I've been covering this area for a very long time. Okay, well, why not?

38:01Laura Mandaro:I mean, just sort of thinking about long, what's the rationale?

38:06Jing Yang:You know, I think these DNA tests are great and they can offer a lot of really interesting and important information for people. I hesitated, I think, because there are genetic privacy issues involved. I don't know if you know this, but like if you have kids, you share 50 % of DNA with them. Siblings, you share around 50 % of DNA with them. So when you take a test and you put it in a database, you're essentially not just making a decision about your own genetic privacy, but also people who are really close to you. And I kind of hesitated about doing that, making decisions for my entire family by just taking my own test.

38:48Laura Mandaro:Fair enough. Okay. Well, that's a lot more thought than I put into it. I think I just never got around to it, honestly. But anyway, okay, I want to talk about the story that you wrote because you sat down with Ann Wojcicki, and I want to get to that conversation. But before we get there, I mean, just walk us through the history of 23andMe because it's been such a fascinating story to watch.

39:10Jing Yang:It really has. I mean, the company was founded nearly 20 years ago, and I think people have forgotten that when it was founded, the entire medical establishment really was against the idea that you should have access to, you know, doing a DNA test, spitting in a tube, sending your saliva, you know, from home and getting your own information without a doctor being involved. Like, this is a profound social and cultural revolution that happened. And then over the years, 23andMe, I mean, I think what they found is it became challenging to find a profitable model. They tried all different kinds of ways.

39:45Jing Yang:And in 2021, they went public. And that was even more difficult because, you know, answering to investors is always challenging. And the stock price went down and they ended up in bankruptcy.

39:59Laura Mandaro:And when you talk about the business model being so tough, what was it that was so tough? Is it very expensive to get these tests processed in the back end? Was it sort of a plateauing of customer interest? What was the fundamental reason there?

40:14Jing Yang:Yeah, I think it's a combination of things. But, you know, yes, when they were first introduced, they were pretty expensive. But the price, you know, went down to around$99. And there were always sales around Christmas when it was even cheaper. So people started to be able to afford the tests. And I mean, they were ubiquitous. I mean, their databases got like 13 million people in it, which is just, you know, huge and really impressive. but there were some privacy issues. Sales started to sort of stall a little bit. You know, I think that there's a lot of people who are interested, but I think a lot of them did it kind of as entertainment.

40:54Jing Yang:It's a really difficult model to try to persuade people that they should pay for health stuff. I think a lot of people expect insurers to reimburse them when it's health related. So it's been tough to try to find the right model.

41:06Laura Mandaro:Okay. So the company files for bankruptcy and and uh she is she's out of the picture at this point i mean she's not with

41:14Jing Yang:the company uh when well no i mean she was this she was the ceo and when the board said that it wanted to sell the company she made some offers she she a couple times she made offers even more and the very you know the board various boards um there was a whole story there um turned her down and eventually the board decided that they were going to sell the company, but through a bankruptcy process, Anne wanted to be an independent bidder. So she stepped down to CEO and said, I'm going to try to buy the company myself.

41:47Laura Mandaro:Okay. And so she gets it. I mean, she pours a lot of her own fortune into buying the company back. And I think in your reporting, you said, we don't know the exact figure, but we know at least it was quite a bit of her own money that she put into it.

42:02Jing Yang:Well, the entire bid that she eventually won,$305 million bid plus$85 million to cover operating expenses, that was her own personal money. I mean, we don't know how much of that represents her total fortune, but I mean, that's a sizable amount of money for someone to say, you know, I'm going to buy it.

42:25Laura Mandaro:And so what now? I mean, what questions were you – when you get an interview with Ann Wojcicki, I mean, this is a person that hasn't read it. really spoken a lot now about the next iteration of the company. I'm curious what the questions that you went into that conversation were and how you were thinking about that.

42:41Jing Yang:Well, for one thing, I think what's most interesting and people are curious about is when she bought it back, she decided it's not going to be a company anymore. It's going to be a nonprofit. And that's just a whole other model. Because on the one hand, you don't have to answer to investors, which is great, but to be sustaining, you know, and she doesn't, I think she hasn't decided yet, she said, but like, you know, she doesn't know how much more of her own money she's going to put into this, but like to be self-sustaining, she's going to have to attract a lot of philanthropy. And also she wants to get more customers to keep buying tests because that's another sustaining revenue model.

43:19Jing Yang:So we spent a lot of time thinking about like, what's the new, you know, talking about what she was thinking about for the nonprofit model. Like, how does that differ? She launched a hundred million dollar capital campaign. And so she has to attract a lot of donations.

43:35Laura Mandaro:And these donors, I mean, you know, one of the things that I found interesting was that the environment in which we are talking about health today is a little bit different than it might've been a couple of years ago because of this movement, you know, make America healthy again is something people are talking about uh she certainly has a very wealthy network but is this a fundamentally different uh ecosystem for a project like this today

44:00Jing Yang:you know absolutely i mean i think a lot of things have changed like one thing i should say is and you know and that she shared is that you know she has made even inroads already she's got a great rolodex as you mentioned and i mean they're one donor who asked to remain anonymous but like Like, he didn't even get asked. Like, he saw her at a tech conference. He heard that she was turning into a nonprofit. And he reached out and said, I'd like to pledge$20 million. I mean, that's not that common also, you know, for many nonprofits. So that started. But, you know, you're right. The ecosystem is so different.

44:39Jing Yang:Anne has always, because she started so early, she faced the medical, you know, she faced down the medical establishment. She, you know, she locked horns with the FDA. Like she sees herself even as much as she's part of the, you know, Silicon Valley establishment. She always kind of sees herself as an outsider at the same time. I mean, it's a kind of unique thing. And she said that she really was, you know, feels comfortable at least with the energy of the Maha, you know, we need our information there. You know, I'm the best expert. I can, you know, be transparent with me. Like she really vibes with that.

45:18Jing Yang:And I think she's hoping that she can find a way for the nonprofit to fit into at least that aspect of the Maha movement.

45:26Laura Mandaro:Did you guys discuss the economics of the business at all in terms of we were talking about the profitability of a single test even, you know, that you have to make the test cheap enough to make it affordable. I imagine it's expensive to run in the background. But I mean, back to the sort of the fundamental business model, is she thinking about that differently at all in this new iteration for the company?

45:47Jing Yang:I think right now what I was struck by is that the business model on the consumer side is pretty similar to what it had been for the for-profit company, which means trying to convince people to buy tests, trying to convince them to pay annual subscriptions to get access to more advanced reports. At the same time, she has to have this new identity as a nonprofit to try to attract philanthropists. I mean, it's a real balancing act. When I sat down with her, she's still at the very beginning of trying to figure this all out. So right now, the business model on the consumer side looks pretty similar.

46:29Jing Yang:And whether that's going to be any more successful or more successful in this iteration remains to be seen.

46:35Laura Mandaro:And so I am just curious. I mean, when you walked away from this conversation, you've been covering the space for so long. Did you leave feeling confident in a second wind here for 23andMe? I mean, they don't have shareholders anymore. It's just nonprofits. So, I mean, presumably this is going to work.

46:51Jing Yang:I mean, listen, I never underestimate anyone in, you know, in Silicon Valley, especially Anne, because she really fought to, you know, get this back. I think the question, and there's no question that DNA testing is part of all of our lives, okay? So the big question, though, is can she turn this database that the company amassed over so many years and now the nonprofit has, can she turn it into something that will draw in people that weren't doing this before? Can she get scientists to use it? Can she get companies to maybe, you know, contribute? Can she get philanthropists? I think that it's promising, but it's a really crowded marketplace.

47:39Jing Yang:And so it's too soon to really counter out, but also it's too soon to be sure that this is going to succeed. Right.

47:47Laura Mandaro:Well, Amy, I want to thank you for coming on and sharing with us all that you found. That is Amy Doxner-Marcus, our health and science reporter here at The Information. That does it for today's show. Oh, a reminder, we are on this stream Monday through Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern. I want to thank you all for tuning in. We really do appreciate your viewership. Make sure to subscribe to the information on YouTube and follow us on X, Instagram, TikTok, and check us out wherever you get your podcasts. I'm already excited for our next show on Monday. Have a great weekend. Bye-bye for now.