AllThingsD » healthcare

Glooko Raises $3.5M for Diabetes Logs

Liz Gannes — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:01:15 +0000

Mobile diabetes-management company Glooko has raised $3.5 million more in a Series A round from its impressive list of investors, which include Chamath Palihapitiya’s Social+Capital Partnership, Bill Campbell, Vint Cerf, Judy Estrin and Andy Hertzfeld. The Palo Alto, Calif., company sells a $39.95 cord that connects to blood glucose meters and feeds data to a free iPhone app. The promise of the company is to elevate the geek hobby of quantifying oneself to the next level — health care.

Dr. Chrono Tries to Make Healthcare Apps Go Viral

Liz Gannes — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:00:16 +0000

The Latin word “v?rus” means slime or poison, and the English “virus” has for much of its history been applied to medical infections. More recently, “viral” has been used to describe the spread of computer attacks, which likely led to its current usage for other phenomena that propagate quickly across a network, like silly cat videos. Now, a paperless medical records and communication start-up called Drchrono is trying to bring the term back to medicine.

I spoke with Drchrono co-founder Daniel Kivatinos this week about the company’s next step, which he said will be an iOS app for patients to store their health insurance and personal information, so they can easily transmit it to doctors. “PatientPad” is planned for release in about two months.

Drchrono already has an app for doctors that helps them track patients’ appointments, records, photos and videos and prescriptions. It is used by about 1,600 doctors, who pay monthly fees for premium features like phone support, speech-to-text and notifications.

The intent for the free “PatientPad” app is to connect to all sorts of personal monitoring device APIs directly to doctors, so a user can control all of his or her medical communications. Patients can use the system independently of whether their doctors use the existing Drchrono app (assuming their doctors will accept such information electronically).

But breaking into the medical industry is hard. Drchrono isn’t even trying to get hospitals to adopt its apps–instead, it’s looking to single-doctor practices. The 2.5-year-old company has moved from New York City to Mountain View, Calif., in part to raise funding.

Kivatinos said he hopes to bring a scrappy consumer market sensibility–honed through participation in the Y Combinator program–to healthcare. Getting doctors on board may require a sales team, but helping patients avoid filling out those annoying paper forms and faxing in records may be something that spreads more easily.

In reality, storing personal records is unlikely to be highly viral, but it may get the word out among patients who then tell their doctors to try Drchrono’s other apps.

Other upcoming PatientPad features, said Kivatinos, may include real-time FaceTime video chats with doctors and emergency doctor searches, where users can trigger an SMS to see who is available and at what price when they need assistance at night or on a weekend.

Kivatinos also has another distribution trick up his sleeve, and it has more to do with timing and circumstance than being scrappy: Pending certification, Drchrono apps will make participating U.S. physicians eligible for $44,000 in economic stimulus incentives for adopting electronic health records.

Top Docs on Scribd in 2010: Prop 8, P ? NP, GOP Pledge

Liz Gannes — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 06:00:25 +0000

Document-sharing site Scribd has compiled its own year-end list for 2010, ranking its user-uploaded docs by the number of times they were shared, commented on, liked, starred and embedded.

In the No. 1 spot was the California District Court ruling on gay-marriage voter initiative Proposition 8. Uploaded by GoodAsYou.org shortly after the ruling came out in August, the document was Scribd’s most viral ever. The start-up provided a timeline showing how it was spread (image embedded; click to enlarge).

We should note that Scribd did not provide a list of docs ranked by number of views. CEO Trip Adler said such a list would be dominated by random items that have good search engine optimization, like a scan of an Indian phone book that has long been one of Scribd’s most-viewed documents of all time. Scribd, which now has 60 million monthly uniques, attributes much of its growth to its improvement of social sharing features.

The No. 2 most-shared doc on Scribd in 2010 was the surprising claim of proof of the computer science problem P ? NP from earlier this year. Uploaded by Vinay Deolalikar of HP Research Labs in August, the paper seemed to show that a class of computationally intensive problems could not be solved using simple algorithms.

In the third spot was the Republican political platform “GOP Pledge to America,” uploaded in September by CBS News. The draft lays out policy principles on the economy, healthcare and national security.

I find it interesting that Scribd’s most social documents are more often notable for newsworthiness than timelessness. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments earlier this month appealing the Prop 8 decision that was posted on Scribd. And as for P ? NP, while many computer scientists believe the claim in the paper on Scribd is correct, the proof itself is not seen as conclusive.

The rest of Scribd’s 2010 social docs list is a similar mix of newsworthy documents and research, as well as a little levity, including a list of 25 macaroni-and-cheese recipes.

California Prop 8 Ruling (Good As You)
PNP 12 pt (Angelica Lim)
GOP Pledge to America (CBS News)
Scribd in HTML5 (Scribd)
A Statement to the Viewers of Countdown (Brian Stelter)
Marijuana Is Safer (Chelsea Green)
Cognitive Biases–A Visual Study Guide (Efern211)
Using Facebook to Move Your Business Forward (Facebook)
25 Mac & Cheese Recipes (Gooseberry Patch)
Influence and Passivity in Social Media (Hewlett-Packard)

25 Mac & Cheese Recipes by Gooseberry Patch

Panasonic Develops Hair-Washing Robot

Beth Callaghan — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 21:03:13 +0000

Showcasing an interesting new use of 3D technology, Panasonic unveiled a hair-washing robot today that scans the shape and surface of a client’s head in order to apply “just the right amount of pressure” while shampooing and massaging each scalp. The robot was designed to help at understaffed healthcare facilities in Japan, where the rapidly aging population is a growing issue.

The Profits Will Come Out Tomorrow? Ning CEO Rosenthal Talks About Premium Changeover

Kara Swisher — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:15:31 +0000

Last week, BoomTown moseyed on down to the Palo Alto, Calif., HQ of Ning–the high-profile social networking platform co-founded by Silicon Valley icon Marc Andreessen–to talk to CEO Jason Rosenthal (pictured here) about a dramatic shift in the start-up’s business plan tomorrow.

As in, go all-premium, trying to find a way to turn the start-up–which has raised $120 million in venture funding since its late 2004 founding–into a profitable enterprise.

Translation for Web 2.0: Profits are when you make more money than you spend.

Moving Ning to that cogent realization has been the unenviable task that has fallen to Rosenthal, who had been COO of Ning until he replaced its founding CEO, Gina Bianchini, in March.

Within a month, Rosenthal had whacked 40 percent of the staff, as well as the free, advertising-based Ning product.

In its place: A paid version that formally starts for the 300,000 active networks on its service tomorrow. While there is a 60-day free window, it’s all premium from here on out.

Wrote Rosenthal, in part, in a memo to staff in April:

“When I became CEO 30 days ago, I told you I would take a hard look at our business. This process has brought real clarity to what’s working, what’s not, and what we need to do now to make Ning a big success. My main conclusion is that we need to double down on our premium services business.”

There will also be cases of sponsored communities, such as a partnership announced today around healthcare, in which WEGO Health will provide Ning Plus service to the many health-related networks for free for one year.

Ning has also struck sponsorship relationship with Pearson Publishing on education-focused networks, for example.

We’ll see how it all goes, but it’s a true and much-needed shift from the growth-over-profits mentality that has seeped too deeply into the Web 2.0 ethos.

Now, it seems, it’s time to pay the piper, at least at Ning.

Here’s the video of my interview with Rosenthal about all this, as well as short tour on Ning’s HQ:

[ See post to watch video ]

Full D8 Interview Video: Former AOL CEO and Investor Steve Case

Kara Swisher — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:35:53 +0000

As promised, All Things Digital is posting the full videos from our eighth D: All Things Digital conference, held in early June.

Today, please enjoy this interview I did with former AOL (AOL) kingpin Steve Case, who is still an active investor in the digital space, especially in the healthcare arena.

Of course, he is most famous for building the Internet’s first mega-company and for merging it with Time Warner (TWX), which became the worst corporate marriage in recent history.

Case did not shy away from talking about AOL–which had its 25th anniversary this year–and much more in this interview at D8.

Here’s the full video of the session:

[ See post to watch video ]

Want to see it bigger? Click here.

Note: We’ll be posting full D8 videos on Mondays and Thursdays. Next up: Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski.

Revolution CEO Steve Case at D8: AOL Could Come Back–Look What Happened to Apple

Peter Kafka — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:56:16 +0000

Steve Case is most famous for building America Online, which became the Internet’s first mega-company, and for merging it with Time Warner (TWX), which became the worst corporate marriage in recent history.

But AOL (AOL) is 25 years old, and the AOL-Time Warner deal is a decade old. What has Steve Case been doing since then?

Investing, in a lot of different stuff. His Revolution holding company has stakes in everything from Revolution Health, a wellness/fitness/medical advice Web site, to Cacique, a Costa Rican resort, to Clearspring, a Web widget company. Late last year, Case sold Revolution Money to American Express (AXP) for $300 million. And Zipcar, another portfolio company, has just filed for a $75 million IPO.

Liveblog

“We meet again,” sighs Kara. “I just can’t quit you.” “We’re off to a good start,” says Steve.

1:58 pm: Kara–Let’s go back 25 years. Talk about the beginning of AOL.

1:59 pm: Case–Well, Zuckerberg was one year old.

I got into this when I was in college, reading Alvin Toffler’s “The Third Wave.” It was riveting.

We started in 1985, in partnership with Commodore. It was a total bet on community. We believed the killer app was community. Chat rooms, bulletin boards, etc.

On the road show, no one believed us. Which was fair, because we didn’t have many customers seven, eight years into it. Needed lots of technology to catch up a bit. And needed people to catch up, too.

2:01 pm: Kara–What put you over the top? All of those discs?

2:02 pm: Case–It wasn’t the discs. It was the content. By 1992, ’93, many more people had computers in their homes, connectivity was better. The Internet was evolving–it wasn’t legal for us to connect to the Internet until 1991.

It took a while before we were considered an Internet company. Even when we went public, we were an interactive company, or online services. Had to morph as market evolved.

2:04 pm: And at some point News Corp. (NWS) sued you?

2:04 pm: Yeah, in 1998. they were upset about an online game they thought we were excluding. There was a lot of antitrust chatter then. Those were the good old days.

Kara: Well, you proved them wrong, the idea that you were too powerful.

Case: “I’m not going to comment on that.”

2:05 pm: On the Time Warner deal: Made sense for us and our shareholders at the time. It made strategic sense. But as Thomas Edison said, vision without execution is hallucination.

I’m recalling, by the way, that one of our strategies was to buy Apple (AAPL), hire Steve Jobs and put him in charge. It was an idea that was floated.

Big point is that with the right leadership, which my group, including me, couldn’t provide, we were set up to succeed. Look at stuff like iTunes, YouTube, etc.–all of that could have come from that company.

2:07 pm: I stepped down after the merger. After a couple of years, I started making one-off investments. Then created Revolution as a holding company. Runs through portfolio, which you can see on his site.

2:09 pm: Kara–You were early on a lot of important trends. Oh, and tell me about your favorite device that isn’t the iPad (thanks, Kara!).

2:10 pm: I’m interested in the social media side, and there’s some stuff bubbling there that reminds me of the early days. Also, mobile and location-based stuff, really. But really, how the Internet can be a platform to change the world. Even companies like Zipcar and our resorts properties only work because of the Internet.

Kara: What’s the relevance of the Internet to a company that helps rich people travel?

Case: Booking tickets on the Web [hmm]. Health care is the one that can really benefit from the Web. Runs through Revolution Health portfolio.

2:13 pm: Case–Turns out I’m much more interested in businesses that touch consumers. Like Steve Jobs said, I like that better than enterprise.

And health care is really a wellness push. Because health care as we define it is really sick care.

2:14 pm: Kara–Talk about Twitter and Sarah Silverman.

Case starts to answer, but Kara interrupts and steers him somewhere else.

Case: I really didn’t want to do a blog in the last 10 years, because that seemed like work. But Twitter made sense. I signed up early, like three years ago, but like a lot of people, it didn’t make sense to me. About a year and a half ago it made sense. Less about what you’re doing than what you’re interested in.

2:15 pm: I’ve always liked that interaction part. I wish we’d thought of Twitter–we were headed in that direction with buddy lists, etc.

2:16 pm: Kara–Tease out the different big Web businesses: Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare.

Case: Facebook’s obviously a real company with real revenue. Twitter and Foursquare are much earlier, but they could be on the cusp of a real business with real revenue.

Kara: If you were a 19-year-old college student, what would you be looking at?

Case: I’m hoping that the Internet just becomes everyday life. You don’t call it email, it’s just mail. Etc.

2:18 pm: Big opportunity for Web integration in health: Wi-Fi pedometers, Internet-connected scales, etc. In most cases, remote diagnostics would be able to help you solve and correct problems.

And I think letting people know about healthier choices can solve a lot of problems, and the Web can help with that.

2:19 pm: Kara–Make some predictions. You’re a visionary!

On Yahoo (YHOO): Case pauses. “I don’t know.” This industry changes a lot. I don’t feel like I’m in a good place to make a judgment. Do remember that iconic brands, with large audiences: You should never give up for dead. Remember what happened to Apple.

On AOL: Obviously it’s not what it was 10 years ago, which is disappointing to see. But still a lot of revenue, cash flow, visitors. A lot of assets for somebody to take forward.

On Apple: Nobody would have imagined this 13 years ago, when Steve came back. Remember that it was worth $1 billion and left for dead. By the way, I’ve told Steve this–I’d love to see Apple focus on health care.

2:22 pm: On Facebook, social networking: Really big. Not going away. That kind of communicating is fundamental to human behavior.

On Hollywood: I do think it’s puzzling. We had a hard time getting VC money into the Internet, but Time Warner would spend $1 billion a year betting on movies. They were very comfortable with that, and so many fail.

2:24 pm: Kara–How do you want to be remembered?

Case: “That sounds kind of like a gravestone question.”

Kara: “Okay.”

Case: I want to be remembered, and my team to be remembered, as mostly a force for good, able to get tens of millions of people to take the Internet seriously and integrate it into their everyday lives. We helped get America online.

2:26 pm: A question from analyst Mary Meeker: Please remind us of the market value of AOL when you went public. And please talk about challenges you had when you were growing (“America offline,” etc.)

Case: We raised $10 million or $15 million, had about $30 million in revenue and were valued at $70 million.

As to the challenges–all of them were double-edged swords. For instance, regarding downtime, it took a better part of a decade to get people to take us seriously, and we let them down. Then again, the fact that people cared about our service problems made it clear that they took what we offered them seriously. It took us a year or so to work through that.

2:29 pm: We had a lot of ups and down. Mostly downs. It was a decade of building. One of my worries now, is that there are so many companies that are built to flip. I wish people took a longer view, and I wish VCs did as well.

2:30 pm: Case: I went to school in Hawaii with Obama.

Kara: How was he?

Case: I don’t know. I was a senior and he was a freshman.

A note about our coverage: This liveblog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations written and posted to the Web as quickly as possible. It is not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

Wired Exec Editor Goetz Talks About New Book on Intersection of Healthcare and Tech

Kara Swisher — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:15:05 +0000

Earlier this week–via bike, which was a very healthy thing to do–Wired magazine Executive Editor Thomas Goetz visited BoomTown HQ to chat about his new book, “The Decision Tree.”

The book is about how personalized medicine will be driven by data and focuses on how innovation in Silicon Valley is solving major public health issues.

The tools, said Goetz, will be a lot simpler than you might imagine, “not through some fancy stent or some magic drug, but simply through delivering better information to people, in a form they can understand and turn into action.”

Better living through apps? Kind of.

Apparently, this is because it is going to be all about information and scaling data that will lead people to better decisions about their health.

Here is a video interview I did with Goetz, talking about this and more:

[ See post to watch video ]

HotJobs Sold to Monster in Yahoo Garage Sale

John Paczkowski — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:43:45 +0000

Apparently, Yahoo’s efforts to sell off some of its noncore properties are going quite a bit better than previously thought. Moments ago, the company said it will sell Yahoo HotJobs to Monster Worldwide (MWW), proprietor of rival online career site Monster.com. Price: $225 million in cash.

The deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter, involves a three-year traffic agreement under which Monster will become the provider of career and job content on the Yahoo (YHOO) homepage in the U.S. and Canada.

Obviously a smart move for Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, who has been trying to narrow the company’s focus to its core portal business–most recently by selling email technology provider Zimbra to VMware (VMW).

Now, if only Bartz can unload Yahoo Games and Yahoo Shopping.

The release, below.

Monster to Acquire HotJobs Business and Enter into Multi-year Traffic Agreement with Yahoo!
NEW YORK & MAYNARD, Mass., Feb 03, 2010 —— Monster Worldwide, Inc. (MWW 16.42, +0.38, +2.37%) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of Yahoo! HotJobs, a leading online recruitment website, from Yahoo! (YHOO 15.46, +0.29, +1.91%) for $225 million in cash. Monster and Yahoo! have also entered into a three year commercial traffic agreement, to take effect upon the closing of the acquisition, in which Monster will become Yahoo!‘s provider of career and job content on the Yahoo! homepage in the United States and Canada. The traffic agreement calls for performance based annual payments calculated by clicks and expressions of interest, subject to annual floors and ceilings. In addition, the traffic agreement provides Monster with an exclusive right for a period of time following the closing of the acquisition to negotiate similar traffic agreements with Yahoo! properties on a global basis, including countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America, subject to certain limitations.

“HotJobs with its significant customer base plus the traffic agreement are an ideal complement to Monster’s innovative recruitment solutions and global reach,” said Sal Iannuzzi, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Monster Worldwide. “These agreements, combined with Monster’s career Communities and our recently introduced 6Sense(TM) semantic search technology, will bring substantial new benefits for employers seeking more qualified candidates and job seekers searching for more relevant opportunities across a wider range of industries—globally.”

“Bringing together Monster and HotJobs creates even greater access and opportunities for both recruiters and job seekers,” said Hilary Schneider, EVP, Yahoo! (NSDQ: YHOO). “The transaction with Monster enables us to continue to provide an important service to our users through the traffic agreement. Yahoo! remains focused on its core businesses and delivering exceptional experiences to users, partners and advertisers.”

Monster believes that the acquisition of HotJobs and the traffic agreement with Yahoo! will provide a number of benefits to jobseekers and employers, who today have more diverse competitive choices than ever before, and a value to all of its stakeholders, including its shareholders. These include:

Anticipated increase in job matches and search efficiencies–By bringing more diverse job and career opportunities, tools and resources together in one place, employers and job seekers will enjoy greater convenience and more precise search results and better matches with Monster’s patented 6Sense(TM) search technology and other innovative products.

Expected expansion of job seeker pool for employers–Monster will be able to offer its employers a significantly larger pool of candidates across diverse geographies and industries. Based on Media Metrix comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) reporting, last year HotJobs averaged 12.6 million unique visitors per month.

Expected expansion of the number of job postings across industries for job seekers–Through the combination of Monster and HotJobs job postings, job seekers will have access to more job opportunities in one place in those industries currently leading job creation, including healthcare, finance and insurance, retail, manufacturing, information and wholesale trade.

Broader reach anticipated for recruitment advertising through additional media alliances and reseller agreement–With the addition of HotJobs’s network of more than 600 daily and weekly newspapers, Monster’s alliances with local papers will grow to a total of approximately 1,000, giving Monster reach in all 50 states. The additional newspaper alliances, through their online and print classified ads, will further Monster’s current strategy of connecting job seekers with smaller, local businesses, particularly in healthcare, education, and skilled and hourly job categories.

Yahoo! will continue to manage its broader Newspaper Consortium (NPC) partnership, including providing both search and display advertising, content distribution, and its ad-serving platform, to newspapers in its NPC.

The transaction is subject to clearance under Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and other customary closing conditions. The transaction is currently expected to close sometime during the third quarter of 2010, subject to regulatory review. Monster expects to realize operating synergies from the acquisition and currently anticipates the transaction will be breakeven on a pro forma full year earnings in 2010 and accretive thereafter, inclusive of the costs incurred under the traffic agreement.

Stone Key Partners LLC and Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as financial advisors to Monster in connection with this transaction. Allen & Company LLC provided a fairness opinion to Monster’s Board.

23andMe Co-Founder Linda Avey Leaves Personal Genetics Start-Up to Focus on Alzheimer's Research

Kara Swisher — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:49:13 +0000

BoomTown just got the following email from Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of 23andMe, the personal genetics start-up, about the departure of her co-founder, Linda Avey (pictured here). She will be starting a foundation related to Alzheimer’s disease.

The pair founded the high-profile company–whose Series A investors include Genentech (DNA), Google (GOOG) and New Enterprise Associates, as well as Wojcicki’s husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin–in 2006.

It has collected almost $23 million in funding.

Avey noted in an email to staff, which is posted in its entirety below: “I also recognize that the company has reached a critical point in its growth where new leadership can take it to the successful heights we all think it can achieve.”

Wojcicki’s email reads, in part:

I wanted to let you know that Linda Avey will be leaving 23andMe to focus her energy on transforming Alzheimer’s research and treatment, leveraging the 23andMe platform. Linda and I have talked about doing research in Alzheimer’s since the inception of the company. Linda, whose father-in-law recently died from the disorder, will be leveraging 23andMe’s platform as she works to revolutionize the research, treatments and prevention for Alzheimer’s.

Linda will be greatly missed by me and my colleagues but we’re glad she will continue to be in a related field, and we are committed to continuing the work that she and I started three years ago.

And here is the email from Avey to the staff, as well as Wojcicki’s below it and then the official press release:

Dear all-

As I trust you all know, 23andMe is very special to me. I also recognize that the company has reached a critical point in its growth where new leadership can take it to the successful heights we all think it can achieve.

I’ve decided that I’d like to focus my efforts on an area that is personally significant and will continue to have a huge impact on our healthcare system–Alzheimer’s disease. Effective today, I’m leaving 23andMe and have begun making plans for the creation of a foundation dedicated to the study of this disorder. The foundation will leverage the research platform we’ve built at 23andMe–the goal is to drive the formation of the world’s largest community of individuals with a family history of Alzheimer’s, empower them with their genetic information and track their brain health using state-of-the-art tools. We’ve always planned to include Alzheimer’s in our 23andWe research mission…I’m just approaching it from a new angle.

Some of you might be aware that my father-in-law suffered from Alzheimer’s and passed away last year. For this reason, Randy and I are motivated to do what we can to improve the understanding of what leads to the debilitating symptoms and what might prevent them from starting in the first place. The ApoE4 association is barely understood but gives us a great starting point.

I’ll miss working with you but will be excited to hear about the progress I know you’ll be making!

All the best,
Linda

Team:

As Linda has told you, she will be leaving 23andMe to focus her energy on transforming Alzheimer’s research and treatment, leveraging the 23andMe platform. While I am quite sad to see her leave I am excited and hopeful as she takes on this mission. As Linda’s co-founder and partner over the last three years, it has been clear that revolutionizing research has been a primary passion. Our drive to change health care has always had roots in our personal lives and we have tried to structure 23andMe so that any individual or organization could actively participate in research. Linda and I have talked about doing research in Alzheimer’s since the inception of the company and the need for the Alzheimer’s community to have a strong leader. With Linda’s involvement, I believe that the APOE4 community could be the first asymptomatic community to successfully develop preventative treatments. I hope that going forward we’ll both be able to shake up and transform the health care space, making health care and treatments better for all.

Linda’s departure is also a sign of 23andMe’s maturation. When we started the company, the personal genetics industry did not exist; now it is a thriving and competitive landscape. Our company has grown and we continue to be an innovative industry leader. While our success has been exceptional, it is also clear we have a lot of work ahead. We have created a significant and empowering tool, but we must find new and better ways to promote the value of knowing your DNA. In the weeks ahead, we will outline a strategy for the company that we believe will make genetics a routine part of health care and will lead us to making significant research discoveries.

Linda has been instrumental in making 23andMe what it is today and we thank her for her passion and dedication to the company. We have many exciting opportunities before us, and I look forward to working with all of you to make 23andMe a spectacular success.

Anne

Linda Avey to Create Alzheimer’s Foundation

Mountain View, CA–September 4, 2009–Linda Avey, co-founder of 23andMe, an industry leader in personal genetics, announced today that she is leaving the company to start a new foundation focused on Alzheimer’s disease. Ms. Avey’s foundation will leverage the 23andMe research platform to search for causes and treatments for the disease, which afflicts more than 5.2 million people in the United States.

Ms. Avey and Anne Wojcicki founded 23andMe together in 2006. The company provides personalized genetic information through DNA analysis and allows individuals to interact with their private information through a variety of web-based tools.

“I could not be more proud of what we have accomplished in the three years since Anne and I created 23andMe, and I am excited to take the next step in applying my experiences to one of the great health challenges of our time,” said Ms. Avey, who has more than 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. “There is a clear need for revolutionary research and concentrated effort to confront Alzheimer’s, and we need to start now in order to make meaningful progress. The resources are out there–my goal is to marshal them to find answers for families, like mine, who have lost family members to such a debilitating disease.”

Concurrent with Ms. Avey’s announcement, Ms. Wojcicki said that 23andMe expects to make its genetic data platform available to Ms. Avey’s foundation in order to advance its research.

“Linda has been a true partner with me over these last three years, an innovative leader for our company and our industry, and instrumental in making 23andMe what it is today,” said Wojcicki. “It is only fitting that she will be making full use of our work together and leveraging the 23andMe platform for a tremendous cause. We look forward to joining her as a partner in her efforts.”

Ms. Avey’s departure announced today takes effect immediately.

Here is a video, in two parts, of Avey and Wojcicki demoing some new features of 23andMe at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference in 2008.

In the first one, they introduce 23andMe, explain the main service and ask News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch, Walt and me about our tolerance for milk and about our racing abilities. (Full disclosure: News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site.)

In the second one, Avey and Wojcicki survey Murdoch on his genetic traits and show me what genes my kids have in common (and discover that I am not hyperactive).

Here are the D6 demos:

[ See post to watch video ]

Dell: Who You Gonna Buy?

John Paczkowski — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:40:51 +0000

Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi has a few ideas about what Dell should do with the nearly $11 billion in cash reserves it’s sitting on, and they don’t include buying Palm.

Sacconaghi believes that Dell (DELL) isn’t interested in a “transformational” acquisition, though its interest in the handset market might suggest otherwise. Rather, the company is mulling the acquisition of small- to medium-sized enterprise-related companies.

“While there has been speculation that Dell could look to acquire a handset company and we continue to believe that a consolidation play in the PC space could make sense for additional details, Dell appears focused on boosting its enterprise business by acquiring small to medium sized companies with strong margin profiles and higher levels of recurring revenues,” Sacconaghi writes.

Which companies? Software, services or storage and networking outfits, most likely, says Sacconaghi. Companies like Perot Systems (PER), Salesforce.com (CRM), Compellant (CML) and 3Com (COMS).

“We see Dell potentially looking to acquire a smaller remote infrastructure management company, or a smaller outsourcer–Perot fits the latter description, and is possible, but it is unclear that it is a willing seller, and its unique concentration (50 percent) in healthcare may be too narrow a platform for Dell’s offerings,” the analyst writes.

“…Dell’s software acquisitions to date have largely centered around systems management and we believe that similar types of companies could be acquired to further expand Dell’s capabilities. Also in software, we believe that [Salesforce.com] would be strategically consistent with Dell’s efforts to drive business at mid to large enterprises, but would be expensive ($4.8B current market cap) and would have a limited impact on revenues ($1.1B in their last FY)….

“Given that Dell’s biggest enterprise partnership is in storage, we believe the company could look to acquire additional IP for its own use. Compellent and CommVault (CVLT) could be appropriate targets. We think a networking deal is less likely, but purchasing someone such as 3COM and attempting to commoditize the networking space would not be inconsistent with Dell’s stated enterprise strategy.”

An interesting list of targets. Still, you’ve got to wonder why it doesn’t include Palm (PALM). After all, Dell really can’t afford to miss out on the handheld market completely. Can it?

RealDepressing: The Entire RealNetworks Layoff Memo

John Paczkowski — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:25:32 +0000

Earlier this afternoon, Peter Kafka reported in Media Memo that RealNetworks (RNWK) was “next up in today’s layoff parade.” Here’s the official internal memo from RealNetworks founder, chairman and CEO, Rob Glaser:

Team –

I’m writing to share some important but not happy news.

Today, we’re implementing a reduction in force affecting about 130 employees, representing about 7.5 percent of the company’s work force. This is a world-wide initiative; about one-third will be in Seattle, approximately another third in other U.S. locations, and the rest outside of the U.S. This is roughly proportionate to the overall number of people we have in each region. All divisions are affected in varying degrees.

Many of the reductions are a result of consolidations of operations of companies we’ve acquired in the past year or so that are being integrated with other parts of our business. We also have looked across the company to integrate similar functions and groups to achieve better efficiency.

Having said that, this is also a reflection of the economy. While our business has not been affected as much as many, we are not immune to what’s going on in the wider economy. In addition to these staff reductions, we’re also tightening our belt in other ways–watching travel expenses even more closely, for instance, and canceling the Seattle HQ holiday party.

Because of the unusually difficult economic environment, we’re taking extra steps to help affected employees. For instance, every affected staff member in the U.S. will receive six months of Cobra healthcare coverage, which is double what we have done in the past. We’re making similar adjustments internationally.

Despite the changes being made today, which I and the rest of the management team deeply regret, the company is well positioned to weather the current economic storm. As per our last earnings call, we expect to achieve record revenue for the year, and we still see opportunities for growth and investment across the business. In order to stay healthy, we need to get our costs in line with the business as it looks today. This will enable us to continue investing in the areas that set us up for growth and success in the future.

Below is a brief video that goes into additional detail.

Video

Audio only

I’ll have more to say at our next company meeting early in 2009. Until then, take care.

Rob

The Entire D6 Interview With Microsoft's Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer (5 of 6)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:51:09 +0000

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Unfortunately, due to issues too complicated to go into, we have to post all the D6 interviews in several 15-minute parts (I know, I know).

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety over the next few weeks in this column.

Here’s Part 5 of 6 of our discussion with Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer, who were interviewed together by Walt Mossberg and me on the conference’s opening night.

(I will be posting one video part of the Gates/Ballmer interview every day this week, including Saturday.)

In this video, Gates and Ballmer talk about Apple (AAPL) and the mobile market and also answers questions from AllThingsD readers sent via the Internet about healthcare and whether Microsoft’s (MSFT) hostile bid for Yahoo (YHOO) has tarnished its reputation.

[ See post to watch video ]