23andMe's Anne Wojcicki and Linda Avey Speak, Part 1

Here’s the first part of a longer interview I did with 23andMe‘s co-founders Anne Wojcicki and Linda Avey about the personal online genetics and social-networking service, which is being launched today.

The company name comes from the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up each individual’s genome.

In this part, they talk about why customers would want to know a lot about their DNA and whether that information is helpful and informative (tracing your ancient lineage) or just plain scary (you could have a proclivity for a zillion scary diseases you never heard of before!):

In addition, here’s a tour of the 23andMe offices and the second part of the interview.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google (an investor in 23andMe).