1,000 Free 23andMe Kits For Davos Attendees (plus one for TechCrunch readers)

Michael Arrington

J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970 in Huntington Beach, California) is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of TechCrunch, a blog covering startups and technology news. Arrington attended Claremont McKenna College (BA Economics, 1992) and Stanford Law School (JD, 1995) and practiced as a corporate and securities lawyer at two law firms: O’Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich... → Learn More

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

23andme.jpgAt a dinner last night at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 23andMe founders Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki announced that they are providing 1,000 free 23andMe personal DNA testing kits to conference attendees. Damn, I thought, I already paid $1,000 (more) for my kit (so much for the benefits of being an early adopter). Rumor is the company is also sending 100 free kits to attendees of the TED conference.

Anyway, after long minutes of negotiation regarding a refund since I could now get a kit for free, Linda and Anne agreed to give one more kit out, to give to a lucky TechCrunch reader. Just tell me in the comments why knowing your genetic background is important to you, and we’ll choose a winner. We’ll stop comments after 24 hours and choose then.

The company won’t say how many kits have been purchased, other than commenting that sales are “way above expectations.” Yesterday the company started selling kits in Europe and Canada. And they just recently launched their corporate blog, fittingly called “The Spittoon.

I just recently got my 23andMe test results back. I’ll be posting highlights next week.

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