Anne Wojcicki

I grew up with my mom being very, very cheap, so when it's free, I'm like, 'Oh my God, it's free - I have to take as much as I can!' ”

My sister learned she was a carrier for a recessive disease, Bloom syndrome, late in one of her pregnancies. I remember the panicked call and the weeks of worry as she and her husband awaited his test results; if he was also a carrier, this meant their daughter had a one in four chance of being born with the disorder. ”

There's nothing worse than walking into a hospital and seeing people sick and miserable and having a horrible treatment. ”

I still meet old-school scientists who are like, 'Oh honey, women aren't good at science.' You kind of dismiss them as insane. ”

My parents were passionate about what they did, very cheap, and very focused on doing good in society. ”

I'm at a slightly higher risk for type 2 diabetes, and my grandmother had diabetes. My hemoglobin a1c, which is one of the measures, started being a little high when I was drinking a ton of that coconut water. ”

My mom was a problem solver. ”

If we can actually decrease the failure rate from nine out of 10 drugs failing in clinical trials and instead have seven out of 10 instead failing, that is a major victory for drug discovery and for people having better therapy. ”

One of the big drivers for me is that health care is a very elitist system. As much as we try to make it free and democratic for all, the reality is that it's expensive and not all therapies are accessible to all people. So I have been very focused on making sure that we democratize genetic information so it's available to everyone. ”

I did a lot of fun things before I had kids - I traveled a lot. Now, I just really love being with my kids. ”