To what end?

Prime Future 205: the newsletter for innovators in livestock, meat, and dairy

The longest 30 minutes of my life was a ride to the airport when an over-sharing Uber driver told me how she'd taken an at-home DNA test and discovered 1) her father wasn't her father, 2) she had 9 half-siblings scattered among various states with various baby mamas, 3) her actual father had eventually been shot by a jealous husband.

While I couldn't get out of the car fast enough that day, I thought about the drama of that story when reading about the growing apathy around at-home DNA testing company, 23andMe. 

23andMe holds a cautionary tales for data startups and data product leaders in agriculture, including livestock, meat, and dairy.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s a staggeringly clear example of the 2 fatal flaws in many data-based business models; the same fatal flaws have plagued much of agtech and left many founders, customers, and investors wondering if there's a there.