Anne Wojcicki Red Carpet Interview w⧸ AsapSCIENCE’s Mitch + Greg： 2020 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony

Yeah, yeah you are. Yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself in science. About myself? Yeah, like and how your connection to it. Well, 23andMe is all about, you know, in some ways like making everyone a scientist. Like there's always this debate, like are you a scientist? Like you're only a scientist. If you have a PhD, you're a master's. But the reality is like everyone can be a scientist. And like you just like you're looking around the world like is it gonna rain? Like why does the door close the way it does? Like all these questions are like about science. Like everything functions. This microphone. Everything functions because of science and science is so cool. So the idea of 23andMe is like get people to understand biology. Like don't make it some weird esoteric. Like abstract thing. Yeah, like I remember learning about stuff and you're like thinking of like all these tiny little particles moving around your body. Millions. I know. It's crazy. Right, so it's much better. It's like, no, make it something that you can relate to. And so what do you think the importance of like something like this in trying to highlight scientists as the celebrities? I think the importance here is that, you know, I want more and more people. I want like pop culture to involve real science. What do you think the challenge is? Why do you think there's a challenge? I think that there's like one of my passions is I think in some ways it's both it's everyone's fault. So a lot of scientists are not necessarily good at communicating. And sometimes they talk down. Like if you think about doctors, like we wear a white coat. Doctors wear a white coat. Hierarchy. And they speak in a language that's like not very understandable. So I think part of it is like you kind of need to break it down and have that belief that anyone actually can be a scientist. And like make it really like break it down. Spend the time. And stories too. I think that's what we think about. Storytelling is so important. It's how you convince people. And I feel like there's even some like intellectual thought that's like the scientific revolution and the enlightenment was anti-story. Because before that we were like we're the center of the world. And then all of a sudden science comes in and is like, oh, no, actually we're not. But I'm like we have to figure out like maybe it's more challenging. But we have to figure out how to make stories a big part of it. So for instance, like I was just at my kid's school. And they were teaching them, again, all kinds of different, you know, science and, you know, and how to design and build. And so they had this project about how could you successfully drop a pumpkin off two stories. Love it. And they're only eight. And so like you had these eight-year-olds who were like, you're going to get to drop a pumpkin off a second-story building. I was like, but you want it to not break. Like that's an amazing science project. And amazing imaginations too that these kids probably have. Right. So I think that's where it's like making science fun, making it something you can relate to. And that's the other thing I love the most about 23andMe is like all these kids got it. And they're like, oh, it like opened my eyes to something. I'm actually like in my history and my context of evolution really. Well, thank you so much for coming. Oh, we were like eyeing you down there. It was really nice. Have a good time. Thanks for talking to the YouTubers. See you.