23andMe walked so we could run. They helped prove that consumers want access to their genetic information. But they built around outdated tech and misaligned incentives. 

Their customer was pharma. Ours is the individual.

Whole genome sequencing isn’t just a better product. It’s an entirely different category. Clinical grade. HIPAA-compliant. Actionable. Built for the real world of preventive care and personal ownership.

This isn’t a version upgrade. It’s a complete shift in model, mission, and tech foundation. And it’s why Nucleus is years ahead and scaling fast.

For those asking what to do with your old 23andMe data: First, move it to a secure, clinical-grade environment. Then, get ready to experience what personal genomics was always meant to be.

Most people don’t realize this: 23andMe is not HIPAA compliant. That means your most personal genetic information is not protected under the gold standard of US clinical data privacy laws. At Nucleus, we didn’t just build better tech and clinical-grade insights—we built the right philosophy. Your DNA isn't a drug discovery asset. It’s your health. Our tests are ordered by physicians, shielded from third parties, and handled under HIPAA compliance from day one. The future of personal genomics requires that level of respect. It’s about trust, not transactions.

Most people who did 23andMe don’t realize they didn’t get meaningful health data. Their test only looked at a tiny snapshot of the genome, missing millions of markers critical for real disease risk assessment. Worse than that, the data generated was often routed toward drug development, not your health. Which means the company’s primary customer wasn’t you—it was pharma. 

At Nucleus, the DNA test is physician-ordered, HIPAA-compliant, and clinical-grade. Your data stays private, and the focus stays on you. Genomics needs a new foundation—not just new tech, but a new philosophy. That’s what we’re building.

Most people don't realize this: 23andMe is not HIPAA compliant. 

That means your most sensitive data—your genetic information—has none of the protections you'd expect from a clinical provider. You wouldn’t tolerate that from your doctor, so why accept it here?

And here’s the kicker: the data isn’t even that useful. Microarray tech, which is what 23andMe uses, captures only a tiny slice of your DNA. It’s not sufficient for real disease-risk assessment, clinical interpretation, or drug development—even though that was the whole business model.

If you're one of the 23 million users, you should take two steps immediately:

1. Download and secure your genetic data.
2. Move it to a HIPAA-compliant, physician-ordered platform that actually respects both the science and your rights.

Nucleus was built from day one to operate under clinical standards, deliver full genome sequencing, and never sell your data. That shouldn't be revolutionary. It should be the default.

23andMe failed because their customer was never the consumer. The data was never good enough for drug discovery, and the product never evolved beyond basic ancestry insights. Why? Because their strategy placed pharmaceutical partnerships above patient value. It wasn’t just a technology gap, it was a philosophical one.

It’s a cautionary tale: if you treat health data as a product to extract value from, rather than a foundation to deliver value to the individual, it breaks trust and limits innovation. Nucleus is built on the opposite premise: that people deserve clinical-grade insights, protected like medical records and designed to actually improve health outcomes. Not just once, but over a lifetime.

That’s not just the future of genomics. It’s the future of healthcare.

Ancestry.com was never a genetics company. It was a genealogy company built around a deeply engaging use case. People cared more about their family trees than the tech behind it, and that clarity of purpose turned it into a $4.7B acquisition.

23andMe never picked a lane. Were they pharma? Consumer health? Genealogy? Their product wasn’t aligned to a real user goal, so they sold data to pharma. But pharma didn’t get real value either. Everyone lost.

The idea that consumer genetics doesn't work is wrong. It's not about DNA for DNA’s sake. It’s about building a healthcare business that uses it to solve deeply human problems: healthier children, longer lives, optimized wellbeing.

Genetic tech is powerful. But you have to know who you're building for.

At Nucleus, we do. That’s why our roadmap isn’t just WGS. It’s wearables, blood diagnostics, full body imaging. A true longitudinal consumer health platform built for the end user, not the buyer.

We’ve seen this play out before.

In 2010, everyone said AI was overhyped. Then came OpenAI.
In 2024, everyone’s saying consumer genetics is finished. But that narrative is about to flip.

Companies like 23andMe never defined the use case. Pharma didn’t get the depth of data they needed. Consumers got an incomplete picture of their health. And investors lost faith.

But the problem was never genetics. It was clarity of purpose.

Ancestry built a $4.7B business around a powerful use case: genealogy. People obsessed over it. They built entire hobbies around it.

At Nucleus, our mission is just as clear: helping people live longer and have healthy families. Genetics is the foundation, not the pitch.

We’re building the first true consumer health platform rooted in whole genome data. This isn’t a novelty report. It’s a system that actually informs decisions—from fertility to disease risk to prevention.

It’s time for a new era. The consumer health giant of the next decade will look nothing like the last one.

We believe Nucleus is that OpenAI moment for health.

Kian calls it like it is. 23andMe walked so Nucleus could run. In just a few sentences, he compares the shift from microarray to whole genome sequencing to the leap from horse to car. This is the Blockbuster to Netflix moment for genomics. The moment lands when he lays out how outdated tech, pharma-first priorities, and a non-HIPAA compliant setup sunk the company. And why Nucleus isn’t just different—it’s years ahead.

Start with the moment Kian explains why users need to move their 23andMe data—because it’s not even HIPAA compliant. Jump into his bold comparison: Nucleus is like going to a doctor’s office, where your genetic data is treated as real medical info. The shock factor is in the reveal that 23andMe never followed clinical-grade safeguards, even though they held people’s most personal DNA. End on the callout: If you used 23andMe, take your data, protect it, and upload it to a secure platform like Nucleus.

Start with the confusion around why 23andMe couldn’t just ‘upgrade’ their tech and use whole genome sequencing. Kian breaks down why that’s not only unrealistic but structurally impossible. Then he delivers the bombshell: they weren’t even building for your health. The real customer was pharma. And the catch? The data wasn’t even that useful because it was only a fragment of your DNA. The payoff moment is when Kian makes clear that your DNA may have been sold without ever really benefiting you.

Most people who used 23andMe have no idea that their genetic data isn't protected by HIPAA. That’s the same set of laws that protect your medical records at the doctor’s office. In this clip, Kian breaks down exactly why that matters, how capitalism boxed 23andMe into a corner, and what you should do right now to protect yourself if you've ever used it. This isn’t conspiracy. It’s just business—and you need to act before someone buys that data in bankruptcy court.

Start with the question: Why did 23andMe fail if DNA is supposed to be the future of health? Move straight into Kian’s breakdown of how microarray tech gave users almost no real health insight. Grab attention by highlighting how users were learning fun facts like asparagus pee instead of discovering life-saving risks. Then hit the core of the bombshell: the pharma companies—not consumers—were the real customer. Finish on the punchy insight that if your entire business is built on data that's too shallow to be useful for drug discovery, collapse was inevitable.

Start with the moment where Kian breaks down why Ancestry.com nailed it and 23andMe didn’t. The hook here is the comparison: one found a niche people loved and built real engagement around it, the other didn’t even know who its customer was. Then let Kian unpack why this confused strategy led to 23andMe’s collapse—pharma was the customer, not the person taking the test. End on his sharp insight: it’s not about genetics, it’s about use case. That's what Nucleus is getting right.

Consumer genetics isn’t dead. It just needed a point. Everyone’s acting like it’s over because 23andMe struggled. But they never figured out if they were selling ancestry kits, health insights, or trying to be a pharma company. Nucleus? The mission is locked: help people live longer and have healthier families. Full genome at the core. Health outcomes at the center. This is the OpenAI moment for personal health.

The giant falls, but the game isn't over—it just evolved. Kian lays out the turning point: 23andMe is the Blockbuster of genomics, and Nucleus is the Netflix. He thanks them for paving the road but makes it clear the future doesn't belong to old infrastructure. The new era is clinical-grade, data-secure, and built from the ground up. This isn’t an upgrade—it’s a complete rebuild. And it’s already here.

Most people don’t realize this: 23andMe isn’t even HIPAA compliant. That means your most sensitive health data isn’t protected under the very standards doctors must follow. In this clip, Kian breaks down why that’s a dealbreaker — and why Nucleus was built differently. Your DNA isn’t marketing fuel. It’s personal. It should be treated like medical information, not monetized behind the scenes.

What if the company you trusted with your DNA never saw you as the customer? That data you spit in a tube for wasn’t about your health at all. It was a transaction—optimized for pharma, not for you. And worse, the sequencing tech was outdated from the start. If you’re just hearing that now, it’s time to ask where your DNA really lives—and who it’s actually working for.

If you did 23andMe, your data is probably sitting in a non-HIPAA compliant system right now. That means it’s not safeguarded like your clinical health records. And if that company gets acquired or folds? Your DNA could be the asset that gets sold. It's time to take your data seriously. Get it out. Secure it. You don't leave your driver's license lying around. Why trust your genetics to a company that didn't design for privacy in the first place?

If you felt like you learned nothing from your 23andMe results, you're not wrong. Here's why. It was never built to offer real medical insight — not even close. The data it collected? Just a tiny sliver of your genome. Not enough to predict real disease risk. Not useful for drug discovery. And definitely not designed with your healthcare in mind. That wasn’t the business model. The customer was never you. The customer was pharma. And that’s exactly why it failed.

What Tesla was to clean tech and OpenAI is to artificial intelligence, Nucleus is becoming in consumer genetics. The narrative says it's dead. The data says otherwise. Ancestry.com was a $4.7B business. Clinical genetics is already a $20B industry. But none of them center the full genome for real health outcomes. Nucleus does. Your DNA isn’t the product — it’s your baseline for living longer and having a healthier family. Genetics isn’t over. It’s just getting started.

Old giants fall so new ones can rise. Kian drops the mic on 23andMe's downfall and why Nucleus isn't just the next step—it's a leap. This is more than tech. It's a reset in the philosophy of genomic health. The castle's collapsing and we're building something entirely new.

People think their genetic data helped move medicine forward. But the truth is, that small DNA sample probably didn’t help anyone. Millions of 23andMe users gave away data built on outdated tech—barely scratching the surface of your actual genetics. Pharma companies couldn’t even use it to make real drugs. The worst part? You weren’t the customer. Pharma was. If you’re still sitting on that old genetic report, you need to hear this.

Millions of people used 23andMe without realizing one thing: Their genetic data isn’t protected by HIPAA. That means it’s not safeguarded like your health records at a doctor’s office. Kian warns: download your data, secure it, and get it into a compliant environment before someone else decides what to do with it.

Why 23andMe was doomed from the start: They never tried to help you. Their customer wasn’t you. It was pharma companies. But the data they sold wasn’t even useful for real drug discovery. It was a sliver of DNA, not a full genome. Not enough for real health insights. So customers felt duped, and pharma partners didn’t get value. The business collapsed because it wasn’t built for health. It was built for B2B, dressed up as consumer tech.

Ancestry.com won because it knew exactly what it was. 23andMe never picked a lane. Were they genealogy? Health? Pharma data? Nobody could tell. They tried to do everything and ended up doing none of it well. That’s what killed them. Meanwhile, Ancestry focused on one passionate customer—someone obsessed with family history—and built around that. Clear strategy always beats scattered ambition.

Consumer genetics isn’t dead. It’s just been built wrong—until now. Keon breaks down why Ancestry nailed the use case, why 23andMe lost its direction, and why Nucleus is the OpenAI moment for consumer health. This is about your whole genome, real outcomes, and building healthier families.

23andMe walked so Nucleus could run. But this isn’t another iteration. It’s the end of one era and the birth of another. Microarray is a horse. Whole genome sequencing is a car. We aren’t upgrading—we’re replacing the engine entirely.

If you used 23andMe, your genetic data may be sitting in a system that isn’t even HIPAA compliant. That’s not a footnote. That’s the core of the problem. At Nucleus, we built clinical-grade testing with medical-grade privacy from day one. Your DNA deserves nothing less.

23andMe built a business selling you ancestry reports and selling your DNA to pharma. But that sliver of your genome? Too incomplete to build real therapies. The customer was never you. At Nucleus, we built the future: full genome, clinical-grade, HIPAA-compliant. For you.

If you used 23andMe, your genetic data lives in a system that isn’t even HIPAA-compliant. That should worry you.

Download it. Secure it. Move it to a clinical-grade, physician-ordered platform like Nucleus.

The future of health deserves better than microarrays and pharma-first business models.

23andMe collapsed because the data was never built to power real health insights. Pharma never got what it needed. Consumers didn’t either. Why? Their tech was obsolete from day one. Microarray is a sliver of your genome. You can’t find meaningful disease risk in it. So the whole model broke.

Ancestry won by going deep on a single use case. 23andMe tried to do everything and ended up with nothing.

You don’t build a category by staying vague. You win by solving real problems, for real people, really well.

That’s why Nucleus is clearer and bolder: extend your life, build a healthier family.

People said consumer genetics was dead. Just like they said AI was dead in 2019. Then OpenAI showed up. This decade, the shift is whole genome → whole health. Nucleus is what happens when you stop building for DNA and start building for human longevity.

When you hand over your genetic data to a company, you're not just buying a test. You're making a trust-based health decision that lasts a lifetime. One of the most overlooked yet critical facts about 23andMe is that it has never been HIPAA compliant. That means there's no legal obligation to treat your genetic data with the same level of privacy and protection as your doctor is required to. That’s not just a minor detail—it’s a major philosophical divide.

At Nucleus Genomics, we take a clinical-grade approach by design. We are HIPAA compliant. We operate under physician oversight. And we’ve built a system where your genetic information is treated as protected health data—it’s never shared, never sold, and never repurposed. That’s not optional. It’s baked into how we do business.

Most people don’t realize that companies like 23andMe optimized not for patient utility, but for pharmaceutical monetization. That’s why only snippets of your genome are collected—just enough to be useful for internal drug-development pipelines, but not nearly enough to give you meaningful insight into disease risk. You aren’t the customer—you’re the data source.

Nucleus flips that model on its head. Your full genome is sequenced. The data is yours. And it’s protected like the medical information it is.

If you're a 23andMe user, there’s a simple action plan: download your data and move it to a HIPAA-compliant environment. This isn’t just about better science. It’s about respecting the sanctity of your DNA.

Genomics is entering its iPhone moment. It deserves data protection standards to match.

23andMe didn’t fail because it lacked demand. It failed because its core data wasn’t built to fulfill the promise it made—real health insights or pharmaceutical innovation.

When you zoom in, the data they built their business around was always a fraction of the genome. Microarray technology captures only a sliver of DNA, which means it inherently misses the most critical genetic variants for health predictions or drug development. This wasn't a secret. It was embedded in their strategy from day one.

Their customer was never the individual seeking better health. It was always the pharmaceutical buyer. Their goal? Aggregate enough of the same shallow data to form a pipeline for drug discovery. But here’s the issue: if the data itself lacks clinical depth, no volume will fix that. Over time, people realized 23andMe couldn’t give them medically actionable insights, and pharma realized it couldn’t build reliable therapeutics from that level of granularity.

That’s why it's not just a business failure, it’s a philosophical one. Any consumer genomics company that doesn’t put actionable health outcomes first is building on sand.

Compare that with what we’re doing at Nucleus: We start with the assumption that health is the product. Full genome sequencing is the minimum bar. From there, we layer in clinically validated traits, family planning tools, longitudinal health data with wearables, blood, even imaging—eventually building toward a truly integrated health platform.

The market didn’t reject genetics. It rejected the wrong use case. The future isn’t in microarray data sold to pharma—it’s in medical-grade genomics used by people to live longer, healthier lives.

Ancestry.com thrived because it picked a lane and went deep. Genealogy is a high-frequency, emotionally charged use case — people genuinely love exploring their family trees. That clarity led to billions in enterprise value. 23andMe never made a strategic decision like that. They drifted between consumer health, pharma partnerships, and drug discovery without fully committing to any of them.

The trouble was foundational. They weren’t a healthcare company; they were a data clipper trying to sell microwave DNA to pharma companies. And that’s where you see the collapse: if your customer is not the consumer, you won’t survive long in consumer genomics. They underestimated both the technological limitations of genotyping and the philosophical consequences of chasing low-yield data over long-term health outcomes.

Contrast that with what Nucleus is doing. Our north star is clear: help people live longer, healthier lives using full-genome data as the foundation. That means HIPAA-compliant medical-grade testing, continuous innovation in diagnostics, and building a vertically integrated platform across blood, wearable data, advanced imaging, and more. It’s not about DNA for DNA’s sake. It’s about giving consumers access to tools that impact their health and their family's future.

Genetics isn't dead. It's just getting started. And the next decade will belong to those who understand that the genome is just the beginning — but healthcare is the endgame.

For years, the promise of consumer genetics has been sluggishly inching forward, held back by unclear business models and half-measures. Ancestry focused narrowly on family history. 23andMe tried to be everything—genealogy, drug discovery, health—but ended up hemmed in by regulatory headaches and scattered incentives.

It’s time to stop treating DNA as a product novelty or a marketing gimmick. The genome isn’t a trivia tool—it’s the foundation for a new generation of personalized health.

Consumer health is bigger than hobbyist curiosity. It’s about knowing your risks before symptoms show up. It’s about ensuring your kids’ health doesn’t get left to chance. To do that, you need the entire genome, not a simplified microarray. Anything less is like trying to read a book with 99% of the pages missing.

Nucleus is not here to play around with partial snapshots or broken promises. We’re building the platform that uses whole genome sequencing to power real clinical decisions, for real people. The future of consumer health isn’t about DNA for DNA’s sake—it’s about what people can do with it: live longer, healthier lives, and raise healthier families.

We’ve seen this before. The narrative around AI was that it was overhyped. Then OpenAI showed up and proved otherwise. The same shift is brewing in genomics. The narrative today is that consumer genetics is dead. But that’s just the prelude.

Nucleus is what’s next.

If you've used 23andMe, you're probably asking: what now? Should I be worried about my genetic data? Should I do anything before the company changes hands or disappears entirely? Here’s a clear and evidence-based look at what you can do to take control of your genetic information.

First, it's essential to understand what kind of test you actually took. 23andMe uses microarray technology—a limited method that captures a tiny fraction of your DNA. It's not sequencing. It's not comprehensive. It's more like reading a sentence from a book and calling it the full story. So, ironically, while the product may not deliver deep health insights, your data is still sensitive. And it’s not HIPAA-compliant.

HIPAA is the gold standard for protecting health data in the clinical setting. Think of it like the difference between using a secure vault at a bank versus putting cash in an unlocked drawer. 23andMe doesn’t meet this standard. Nucleus does. So if you've taken the test, it’s time to take action.

Here’s what to do:

1. **Download your raw data file** — This is your personal genetic snapshot. It’s your right to own it.

2. **Move it into a HIPAA-compliant system** — This helps ensure the data is protected to clinical-grade standards. Nucleus offers this. Other companies do too. Take the time to research and choose wisely.

There’s a lot of noise around DNA data breaches, pharma company deals, and digital privacy. But don’t get swept up in excitement or fear without action. This isn’t just about identity or novelty—it’s about your long-term health, risk modeling, and decision-making. You’ve already paid for that test. Now it’s time to secure the insights from it properly.

Protecting your genetic information isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a necessity.

If you’re one of the millions of people who used 23andMe and thought you were getting powerful health insights, it’s time to take a hard look at what you actually paid for.

At Nucleus Genomics, we believe customers should be the center of the genomic revolution — not pharma companies. The reality is, most consumer DNA tests, including 23andMe, don’t sequence your entire genome. Instead, they rely on microarray technology, capturing less than 0.1% of your DNA. That’s like buying a book and getting only a few pages.

The bigger issue? These companies often used your partial genetic data to build drug pipelines or sell to third parties, while giving you shallow ancestry reports or trivial traits in return. In many cases, customers were never the end user — they were the product.

And now, with 23andMe facing bankruptcy, the risks become far greater. Their data assets — likely one of the most valuable parts of the business — could be sold off without robust HIPAA protections. That means your DNA data could end up in the hands of unknown entities that don’t prioritize your privacy.

Unlike 23andMe, Nucleus uses whole genome sequencing, giving you a 100% complete view of your DNA — the full book, not just the footnotes. And we’re fully HIPAA compliant. We don’t sell your data. We treat it like the medical information it is — private, personal, and meaningful.

If you used 23andMe in the past, here’s what you can do:
1. Download your raw data immediately from their platform
2. Move it into a HIPAA-compliant environment
3. Consider re-testing with clinical-grade sequencing that gives you real insights into health, not half-truths built for marketing

You deserve more than genetic novelty. You deserve answers you can act on.