August 14, 2018 • 39 mins
For the debut episode of Spit, host Baratunde Thurston sits down with two people who are changing the world. One through Art, and one through Science. Join us for an intimate conversation and the unscripted thoughts and opinions of award-winning recording artist and philanthropist John Legend, and 23andMe Co-Founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki to deconstruct how understanding your human genome can change how we think about ourselves, our sense of belonging and our connection to each other and the world. If we are all 99.5% the same, why do we spend so much time on the 0.5% of differences? How does science prove or disprove the stories we’ve grown up with? How does understanding how much alike we really are bring more empathy and compassion into the world? How we are seeing each other more than ever before? How much can one person make a difference? And what we are all hopeful for… Spit is a new iHeartRadio podcast with 23andMe. Enjoy this episode? Subscribe, rate and review Spit on iTunes. And be sure to tell your friends all about it. Find out more about our host Baratunde Thurston at Baratunde.com or sign up for his text messages at 202-902-7949 and #spitpodcast You can find John Legend @johnlegend and Anne Wojcicki @annewoj23
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Baritone Day Thurston and this is spit and I
Heart Radio podcast with twenty three and Me. This is
the podcast that explores how our DNA is changing our
lives and the world around us. For our first show,
we'll explore how are we all related? The most drastic
examples of violence in humanity that we have, we're often
justified by people thinking that someone who looked a little
(00:25):
bit different or worshiped a little bit differently. But I
feel like we're becoming closer together in the world is
becoming less violent, more empathetic, and we're helping each other
more than we ever used to. You're not that different
from other humans. You're actually genetically really similar, and that's
the reality. I am here with two guests who are
changing the world, one through culture, one through science. We
(00:48):
have a Grammy Oscar Tony and hopefully soon Emmy Award
winning certainly nominated artist, philanthropist and Rose purveyor Mr John Legend.
Welcome to the rooms. Thank you, thank you, good to
You also have the co founder and CEO of twenty
three and me. Please welcome and thank you. Do your
(01:09):
name okay, perfect, got the name? Got the name? Everyone
needs to do we got to warm up, so you
all warm. We're going to talk about what DNA means
to us, the story that it tells us about who
we are and how we're all related. And I want
to start with you, John. Have you done a DNA
(01:31):
test before and if so, what have you found out
about where you're from? Yeah? I did a DNA test.
I learned a lot about the stories of my ancestors,
some of whom were slaves in America, and some of
the courage that they displayed on one group in my
family history. Literally, UM fought in court for their freedom,
(01:53):
and the state of Ohio defended them, the state where
I grew up and was born, defend exactly why I
root for the guys UM. They defended my family in
court because someone who was UM descendants of their their
masters before UM, tried to reclaim them back into slavery
(02:13):
back into the South when they were living in Ohio,
and Ohio went and defended them. Uh. You, So Ohio
defended ancestors of yours from being kidnapped by folks from
back into the South. But also they give you the
literal breakdown of where they think your ancestry comes from.
You got like the John Legend recipe. Yeah, the recipe.
People want to know what the recipe is. So I
(02:34):
found out I was two thirds of African descent, West
African and one third mostly European descent. Um, you know,
like western and northern northern Europe. This is very exciting
for me. Yeah, um, black and the job black, the job.
I feel like black people we kind of know our
level of blackness. We can look at each other. We
(02:56):
look at the skin tones and we're like, oh, it
looks like he's mixed, or he looks like he's just right. Yes,
I turned it turned out I was two thirds. So
you know, whatever that says, that's what it says. Um,
it's very American. And I think, Um, when both of
your parents consider themselves black, they have about the same
complexion I do, and probably a similar mix um uh
(03:18):
that I do. You're raised black, you know, they think
of themselves as black, So you think of yourself as black,
no matter whatever other mixes in there. In America kind
of tells you you're black as well, by the way
America treats you and by the way that America looks
at you. Um. And so I never really kind of
accounted for a thought about the other parts of my mix,
because I thought, well, I'm black, and that's what I am, um,
(03:42):
And you know, we know what light skin and dark skin,
and you know, you know brown skin or whatever is uh.
And we talked about that in the community of black folks.
But at the end of the day, we think of
ourselves as black most of the time unless you have
a parent who's of another race, and then it kind
of complicates it more. So that's what I thought of
myself as. And then I got the details on it
when I took the test. Did that change what you
(04:04):
told yourself about who you are or where you're from?
You know, because I think, um, I always thought of
myself and I think also considering myself black, would also
consider myself African American, which um, African American to me
means the possibility that you're mixed with probability and and
probably that that mixture comes from probably a story that's
(04:25):
not so good, which is a lot of times the
white blood in our ancestry comes from rape and from
domination from um, white male slave masters towards black women.
So we know that story. A lot of us in
our community know that story, and so when we think
about our ancestry and we know that part of it's white,
we know that there's a good chance that part of
(04:47):
that whiteness comes from something that was pretty evil and
violent and um destructive. Uh So it's an interesting thing
to grapple with. And it's part of the American story
and the African American story that slavery can never be
kind of erased out of the conversation because so much
of that history and affects our legacy. Now. Yeah, and
it's literally in the DNA. It's literally in our DNA,
(05:09):
which is a nice segue to you, And what do
you know about your genetic story and your DNA story
where you're from. Well, both my parents are relative, you know,
my my father's first generation, my mom's parents, they immigrated here.
It was interesting because we're obviously we're one of the
first people that were ever that was ever sequenced or
every ginotyped um and so my mother is Jewish, my
(05:31):
father is Catholic. And it's interesting because it was the
first time we got the DNA back and you could
so clearly see I remember my sister saying, she was like,
it's eerily creepy. How accurate it is like the DNA
really shows up. So I'm half Jewish, half European, and
so I have a tiny bit of Croatian. So I
was actually like we were excited for the World Cup.
We were actually I was I was thinking about what
(05:53):
part of what team do I want to root for.
I was like, well, I got that one person in Croatian,
so therefore I'm like, I'm rolling for it. Um. I
love DNAs and the excuse to root for a World
Cup completely completely For black people, that meant root for
France exactly. So what was interesting is my grandmothers from Siberia,
and she looked very Asian, like you know, my great
(06:15):
grandparents and more and more, and so we always had
this belief we're like, we're just part Mongolian, like we
know what, like they're from, you know, an area that
was similar to Mongolia or close to Mongolia. And then
when we got our DNA, that was actually our Bible
disappointment because we were so you know, determined, we're like
we're like part Mongolian and we're really not. We're not
at all. That's what it was for me and Native
(06:36):
American because you grew up in black families and so
many of us kind of have this mythology or something
in our community where we're like, yeah, we're part of
Indian for some reason or another. And I think a
lot of particular light skinned folks might have come up
with that as a kind of way of not acknowledging
their white ancestry. But it turns out no, no, it
(06:57):
was like one or two percent. Uh, And then you know,
it's definitely one of the most common we see people
who have you know, who think that they know what
their ancestry. And that's part of the reality is like
you get you get a decent amount of non paternity.
A lot of people, you know, are not necessarily related
to the father that they think. And people have been
you know, there's different stories about where you've actually been.
So the reality of whatever you look like today, you
(07:19):
can look a certain way, but what's in your DNA
can actually be quite different. Yeah, and then and what's
in the story that you have to be different from
within your DNA? How much nonpaternity are you guys getting?
You know, it's fantastic stories. I think coming the show,
it's it's interesting, how um, I mean, I feel like
over the last twelve years we've you start a company
(07:42):
and you think you're starting for all kinds of reasons,
and um, you realize ten years later the consequences of
all the all the things that you you sort of anticipated,
but you didn't realize quite the impact it would have.
And I would say one of those things is nonpaternity.
And you always know it's out there, but it's out
there with a frequency that probably every single family has story.
So if you imagine that the nation average is about
(08:02):
ten percent if you go back three generations. UM. I
always joke that you have someone in your family whose
uncle Joe, who's actually just Joe, and it's relatively high.
But you know, you go back statistically, you have enough
people in your in your family three generations there's someone
(08:25):
there that everyone has a story. And that's the type
of thing like we just found recently that we just
found a first cousin and it's interesting, like we we
kind of um, like I I kind of felt for
this guy who you know, he was adopted and was
looking for his family. And the guy logs in and
holy cow, like there's a lot of us on twenty
three and like, not only that he can see he's
(08:48):
related to the founder. Um so no, and it's and
it's amazing, like we um know, we've we've I mean,
we're we see him right, I Mean it's great. And
that one thing that I've learned, like one of the
most interesting things I think that's come out of twenty
three ME that we're grappling with as a site, what
is the definition of family? And you know, is it
just based on genetics or is it based on you know,
(09:11):
the community that you grew up with. And people come
to me all the time and they say, all these
people think they're my cousins and they're they keep emailing
me on twenty three ME, and I'll say, I was like,
well they are, Like it's it's all that they think
they are. You have DNA in common with these people,
like you are, so you know, And and it goes
to again, one of the main things I think that
I've learned with twenty three ME is how much the
world is genuinely connected like we have. Like again, I
(09:33):
grew up in the era of we are the world
and singing that and um and you believe it, But
but now I can see it, like scientifically, I can
see that the entire that we are the world, like
we're genetically connected, not just to each other as human,
but every living thing on this planet, Like there is
a common like life all evolved in one way, and
(09:54):
you're connected like you know, you're connected to the trees,
You're connected to you know, the animals running around, You're
connected to everything here. Everything has the common four letders
of d n A And there's a beautiful story of
evolution and how we've evolved and sort of how you've
been optimized as well. I mean to me, that's where
like we are all connected, we are all, we are
(10:15):
the world. So so in the scientific grounding, there was
a lot that you both just just offered up. And
one thing I heard from both of you is the
story versus the science of who we are, whether racially
right scientifically your one third white, but your identity is
black because that's what you grew up with. And you
(10:35):
know you had a story of mongolia, and the science said, well,
actually not at all. But this common ground, these letters
that unite us all we find a way to exacerbate
the divisions very effectively. Right, we're not a nine point
the same as humans, but that point five percent is
(10:56):
an area we have been eager to explore, to put
it positively, UM. And so I think for you, John,
what are you? What have you seen in some of
your work in the way you connect with people through music,
but then certainly your activism about how we explore and
exploit that very small technical, scientific division. Yeah, it's interesting
because I think part of the goal of art is
(11:16):
to bring us together and and and get in touch
with our soul and and um connect us through like
a common human experience. I play my music and in
New York, I played in Los Angeles, also played in
Johannesburg and Cape Town, I played in Lagos, I play
it in Sam Paolo, I play it in Beijing. And
(11:36):
I feel like there's so much that unites us and
that connects us to each other. And I think art
is a really powerful way to kind of highlight that
and to inspire that connection to even become closer. And
I think storytelling, particularly comes to TV and film, has
the power to help us empathize with other people when
it comes to other experiences that may not be our own,
(11:59):
or even seeing um that people living um thousands of
miles away can have common experiences, UH, that we face
and have common desires and loves and wants and and
UM fears. And I think that's part of the power
of art UM. But also obviously UM, like you said,
those those small differences have inspired a lot of war,
(12:23):
inspired a lot of discrimination, inspired slavery, and all these
other awful things. Holocausts are, you know, the most drastic
examples of violence and in humanity that we have. As well,
we're often justified by people thinking that someone who looked
a little bit different or worshiped a little bit bit
differently wasn't human in the same way, or wasn't enough
(12:46):
like them too for them to feel empathy or love
towards them, And UM use their fear of their difference
to UM justify a lot of violence and in humanity.
So we've seen all of that, UM. But I feel
like we're becoming more and more connected around the world.
I feel like we're learning more and more about how
much we have in common. I feel like we're seeing
(13:08):
each other more and more than we ever were before.
We're living more closely together than we ever were before.
And media has brought us together more so that we're
experiencing the same things more than we ever used to.
And so part of me is optimistic, even though we're
in dark time sometimes and and sometimes we are really
(13:29):
in disagreement with losing leadership and and some of the
inhumanity that is as coming from our leadership. UM. I
think overall, in the ark of the world, I think
we're becoming closer together, and the world is becoming less
violent and and more empathetic, and we're helping each other
more than we ever used to. Thank you for that. UM,
(13:50):
the way you cast the role of art, multiple modes
of it, it appeared to me as as UM, you've
got this bird's eye view from Manila to San Quentin,
Los Angeles, and you also have a bird's e view,
and you know from the five million users of your platform,
which is one of many, but you you have a
(14:11):
particular window. What do you see? I mean, do you
have a parallel version of what John C's through being
in the field with the art and also seeing the divisions.
Are you seeing a similar level of connectivity but also
division in that scale that you have access to? I
think people, you know, you go back twenty years ago
when I was little and we moved, you know, my
parents would take us to Thailand and it was like
(14:32):
Oh my god, it's like shock, Like it's so it's
such a different you know, culture, it's a different people.
We moved to France. It's just it was different, Like
it felt so different. And I think one of the
things that's interesting that we can start to portraying you
in your DNA is one we're appealing to your ego.
It's all about you, like we just taught you all
about you, and you are fascinating, like everyone is fast
(14:53):
garantee guarantees succeing you are fascinating, and and suddenly it's
a sense of like I know myself and I'm fascinating,
and holy cow, like I'm really similar to this person who,
like you know, lives in a tribe in rural Africa
and is totally different than me, and we're really similar,
like genetically. Like the foundation Again, this isn't what we
(15:16):
started the company to do, but I actually think it's
a really beautiful consequence is that people do start to
recognize that they're more similar and in some ways, like
for me being sort of the nerdy scientists, like each
mutation that has made you slightly different, friends writer insulting me,
(15:40):
we all have makes this because the mutations. But like
the reality is, like mutations are why we have this
spectacular people in the world. Like who's saying both, like
he's amazing because he has spectacular mutations that like that's why,
like he's evolved in such a way that he can
obviously run really fast. And you evolved in a way that,
(16:01):
like your ancestors evolved so like you have darker skin
that protects you. Like people with like bright you know,
blonde hair, blue eyes evolved in such a way so
that they could actually capture more sun. So because otherwise
you're not gonna get as much of like the nutrients
you need from your son from the sun. So every
every mutation is a story of survival. And and I
(16:22):
think when you can look at that and say, like
we're meant to evolve and we're meant to survive, and
because of that, you know, you can see this really
interesting in terms of like virus in in infectious diseases.
So the nineteen eighteen flu which killed you know, uh,
millions of people. I don't know if it's millions or
if it was a million um but there's certain people
who have a genetic mutation that make them resistant to it.
(16:44):
The same thing with HIV. There's certain people on this
planet who are genetically resistant to HIV, and so similarly,
like we're all meant to be a tiny bit different
to make sure that the next generation is going to
be even better than what we are today. And so
part of for me is celebrate ing that we do
have these like slight genetic differences because it gives me
hope that like in a thousand years, like it's going
(17:06):
to be even more interesting than it is today. And
that by appealing to the ego through the twenty three experience,
and like we teach you about you, you realize like
you're not You're just not that different. You're not that
different from other humans. You're actually genetically really similar. So
you have certain genes in your body that all different
living species have. And so you can look at your
(17:27):
DNA and what present of your DNA is similar to
a mouse, and we can see there's like certain things
that are really fundamental, like they have two eyes, a mouth,
so that kind of thing, like those are conserved, like
you're you're actually and again, like my dream one day
and my team always is like, and um, I want this,
Like I want to map from the beginning of life
(17:47):
to have like when did we branch off? Like when
we're they're like different trees, and when did the mouse
and when of the humans? Like we're all connected, Like
I want the whole tree of life, like but it's
started from the same place, Like all really have that
similar Like that's why I love Like we have the
same like all of us have the same grandparents. So
like it's it's like it's so interesting and I think
(18:09):
that again, like the beauty of it is appealing to
the ego, Like let me teach you about you and
then we'll teach you about the world. Just pro tip
if you can't appeal to my ego. Mice like veloso raptor, eagle, lions, lions, panthers,
you know, hanging out more than my daughter. It was like,
(18:31):
I want to be related to the bonny rabbit, so
I need more time with you. He likes panthers like eagles,
lion the path. I love it. I love it. Okay,
Well let me find out those genetics of those, Okay,
I want I just basically I want scientific proof that
I'm black panthers, a black panther. That would be my
(18:56):
follow up to I love it. Oh so so um
within your family, John, how do you all you have
a mixed race family children, you're talking about my my
wife and my kids, your wife and kids. How do
you all talk about your identities? How do you with
the narrative you build? Have you done the whole family
(19:17):
genetic tests? Well, our kids are old enough to really
talk about race. Yet. My family, my wife and I
are very aware of where we come from. And she's
a mixed race as well. And so she's one of
those people that looks like she could be a bunch
of things. So people ask her what are you all
the time? And she said, so, I feel like for
(19:38):
people that look like Chrissie, I think a lot of
times it's almost annoying how much you get asked what
you are all the time. But she's also proud of
her heritage. She's her mother was born and raised in
a village in Thailand, and her father, Um, his family
came from Northern Europe, Germany and Norway, and they moved
to America, you know, in the late dred early nine
(20:00):
for a better life and and uh and you know,
he's one of the first generations born here from a
family that came from Northern Europe and he met um
Chrissie's mom in Thailand, and Chrissy is the result of
that beautiful uh marriage. So, UM, when our kids grow up,
they're gonna have a grandmother who was born in a
(20:22):
village in Thailand, and they're gonna have my mother who
was born in Springfield, Ohio as an African American woman.
And they're gonna have all of this interesting heritage, and
part of it will be the fun of learning about
the different cultures that they come from. Um, they're gonna
have Thai foo, They're gonna have so food, They're gonna
have you know, European American food. You know, they're gonna
(20:42):
have all of that. Um. And they're gonna travel the
world with us and and and hopefully they'll grow up
in a world that's even more loving and more accepting
of difference, uh than the one we grew up in.
And um, they'll have pride in their family ancestry as well.
And you've mentioned a couple of times that some of
(21:03):
what you're seeing through twenty three isn't what you exactly
planned for. Where else has what you've seen deviated from
what you expected? A couple of I think specifically actually
as relet in this conversation is UM the perceptions of race. UM.
We see a lot of conversation about like what is
(21:24):
like again, I we we started up very much as
like this is about genetics. We're going to really change
the pace of research. Like we're about you know, empower
people with diseases. You know, come together, you're gonna learn
about yourself. It was very much focused on health and
I feel like we've gotten into suddenly UM we impact
identity and UM. And when you think about identity, you
(21:45):
start getting into the race question. And I had no
again with we have this feature called ancestry composition where
it really does UM. You know, it shows you all
the things we talked about your breakdown. And we have
stories like one of my favorite is was this woman
who was adopted and you know, she came she found
through twenty three me. She was part of UM, this
(22:07):
reindeer people up in the Sami people up in the
Arctic Circle. She quits her job, she's a phenomenal job
in the Bay Area, quits her job and moves to
the Arctic Circle to like live with the rainbeard people.
And she writes me two years later and she said,
you know, I've never been happier. I've dedicated all of
my marketing efforts to giving voice to these people. I
(22:27):
feel at home for the first time. And I take
this story and I walk over to my research team
and I go, you better be right because and I
because again, we started as like it was very much
focused on UM, you know, scientific research and you know,
(22:49):
a lot of disease work and making sure and suddenly
I have people changing their whole identity based on the
information that we're that we're giving them. And we have
another story in People magazine a few years ago, and
we were just reading the title and I think it's UM.
You know, Jewish woman with four UM biracial children, discovers
(23:10):
her father UM and grandfather were a grand clansman and
UM and so here it's one of these stories like
and it's it's so crazy because she was the product
of a fling and UM, raged Jewish married an African
American man, has biracial children and discovers her father, who
is very racist, who's UM. Her grandfather was a grand clansman.
(23:33):
UM was arrested for actually trying to bomb UM. You know,
one of the first African American schools, and Aria is saying,
I have to I'm gonna love my grandchildren. He's seventy four,
so like I have to have a mind shift. Um,
I'm gonna spend time with my daughter's husband. And it's interesting.
The article is very raw because it's like it's not
it's not like it's harmony on day one. It's not like, oh,
(23:55):
I was wrong for seventy years. But it's like we're
going to talk about it, and he's I've committed. I'm
going to spend time with my grandchildren. I'm gonna love them.
And I think that's the kind of Again, like I didn't,
we didn't start the company thinking this, but like that's
I think where when you find a real meaningful connection
with somebody who's totally different than you, I think it
(24:16):
opens your mind, like you're going to then be more
open to it. And I think, again, the more it's
where I love the idea of combining sort of Facebook
social networking world with people who are totally different from you,
but they're genetically similar. And how much can we actually
have an impact on helping understand differences. Well, do you
(24:36):
get involved in the nature nurture conversation people are always
having because in some ways people are taking the information
you give them and almost recrafting their life to kind
of let their genes in some way determine who they are.
But also there's a side where people aren't don't have
to be determined by their genetic background and by who
their ancestry is. Uh in some ways as well. Right,
(25:00):
I think there's a whole you know, the nature nurture
debate is what captured captivated me. I don't know, six
years old. The first time I heard about it, I
was like, this is fascinating, Like what is it the
potential to do? And then what can I change in
my environment? When I was six, um, I was fascinated
by glue. Well, today that's also a popular activity with slime.
I don't know how much slime you're making, but we
(25:21):
do a lot of slime in my household. So the
nature nurture conversation is fascinating because you have certain things
that you know, if you have the genetic mutation for
breast cancer, you're just high risk, like very high risk.
There's definitely things that you can do in your environment
to to impact it. I have a high blood pressure
and high cholesterol. And that's where there's like there's especially
(25:43):
on the health side. You might know at an early
age your higher risk for blood pressure. Okay, do you
actually change the kind of salt that you intake in
your life? Do you actually from day one just try
to say if you knew your high risk for addiction?
Do you just say, okay, you know what? Like when
I if you haven't, I just had knee surgery, Like
no fent in all for me, Like no no dream drops,
Like just like, how is it that you can take
this information and say I'm going to impact a little
(26:05):
bit of what I'm exposed to. I'm a huge believer
as well in the power to overcome, like your mindset,
like I love the ten hours theory, like you dedicate
your time. You dedicate huge effort into anything you want
to do, and you can be pretty great at it.
So you definitely have some aspects like I'm not you know,
how musical could I really be if I really dedicated myself?
(26:27):
Could I ever like be your sidekick? I think not.
I would love I'm a great backup to answer though.
Um So I think that it is and I think
the nature nurture question is something that we're continuing to
understand just how much do your genes impact the outcome
of who you've been. Clearly environments huge, and so I
(26:50):
think that's where it gives people an opportunity to say, hey,
here's here's potentially what you were born with. But there's
a lot of potential and the decisions that you make.
And one thing I try to emphasize to people is
that the decision you know, to me, I'm forty four,
I've made a lot of decisions in my life. So
it's not like I just wake up today and I'm like, hey,
like I'm going to start fresh, Like hey, it's always
good to start over, But every single day of the
(27:11):
last forty four years has had an impact on me
and who I am today. So it's important for people,
Like every single day when you're making that decision about
Garrido's and ho ho, it's like it has an impact
cumulatively over time. Yeah, and every decision that other people
make two that around you, So like what kind of
schools you're able to go to, what uh kind of
parenting you're exposed to, and all these other decisions impact
(27:35):
that all of that. When you started talking Anne about
you know at forty four, you don't just make a
fresh start. And then I'm thinking about your work John
with Free America and folks who didn't have the ten
thousand hours you know, or had very limited access to
the types of ten thousand hours because they were incarcerating,
but they are, you know, many of them are returning
and trying to have a start. Can you talk a
(27:56):
little bit more about that that you know, the this
is that different form of cher It's like the opportunity
of nurture. Well, I'm believing that people can grow and
then they can learn, and I experience that in the
work that we do around education and around the criminal
justice system. Because if you look at because a lot
of times, I think a lot of people are kind
of in their mind they think you just are who
(28:17):
you are. Like John can sing, he was just he
just is a good singer. He's a good pianist, he
was just meant to be a musician. But if I
didn't spend a lot of time practicing, there's no way
I could have gotten better to the point where I
could be who I am today. Because a lot of
people have some kind of grain of talent that isn't
cultivated that isn't UM, that isn't nurtured in any way,
and they don't make it to where I am because
(28:38):
of that. UM. And so when we look at our
school systems, UM, we have to decide are we doing
the right kinds of things to help these young people
with the seed of talent or spark or whatever they have.
Are we helping them become the best person that they
can be? And on the back end, are we creating
situations where they're not exposed to good education. They're not
(28:59):
exposed is the good neighborhoods, and they're exposed a lot
of trauma. They're exposed a lot of things that alter
and I believe trauma actually alters your genetic makeup. I believe.
And Uh, if they're exposed to all these kinds of
negative inputs, UM, how bad are we messing them up
so that the criminal justice tem is eventually going to
have to deal with them because we put them in
a situation where they're more likely to commit crying, they're
(29:20):
more likely to be unemployed, and more likely to have
all these other issues that they have to deal with, UM,
that we as a society end up dealing with because
they might get addicted to drugs or some other thing
that happens because of all the trauma and all the
difficulties that they've seen, And so a lot of times
I'm thinking about how do we make our society better
so that the front end we're investing in education and
(29:42):
healthy communities and all that we need, and then in
the back end that we're not over incarcerating and destroying
communities by by being too Dracronian in our criminal justice system.
You you know, I I started this by saying, like,
we have two people here who are changing the world
through culture through science, but it also you've both used
language around helping us be the best versions of ourselves
(30:07):
and you know, through art, through action, through education, through
scientific inquiry, through products. Really, um, that's not a question.
That was just a statement, and I thought maybe there
would be a question mark at the end of there's
so much potential that we have. Just think about Just
think about sexism, for instance, when you waste the talent
and potential of half of the population, Just think about
(30:28):
just think about how destructive that is for the community,
And just think how how underutilized the community is. When
you say half of the population can only reach this
glass ceiling and can't be their best self. Um, and
you put rules and structures in place to make that
kind of reinforced, it's such a waste. And if we're
doing that with whole neighborhoods, if we're doing that with
(30:50):
half of the population when it comes to women, when
we're doing that, uh, with entire racial groups. And in
America where you know, twelve percent of us are black
or another you know for a teen or so are Hispanic.
And if you're wasting the talent because you're saying, these
people don't get included in the American dream, they don't
get included in what we think of as people that
deserve a good education or healthy community. UM, it's such
(31:15):
a waste. One of the things that we always say
in the company is that everyone's good at something and
and we see this even just from how we operate
the company. As you know, someone can join on a
certain team and not necessarily execute well, and we give
an opportunity to go into another team. You know, they
move some people then who move on to their third
team and then they're great. And UM, and I think about,
(31:35):
like I was really lucky as a kid my parents,
I worked a lot of different jobs, and I was
given a lot of opportunities, but it's it's hard to
necessarily find what you love. And like part of the
reason why I like, I absolutely love what I do now,
like I have, I'm lucky. But everyone's good at something,
you know. Warren Buffett always says, you know, if he
had been you know, raised in you know, Hunter Gather society,
he would not be thriving right now. Like he's really not.
(31:57):
He's not meant for you know, he found what he's
really good at. UM. So I think that that's where
it's like, more and more we try to help people
like really believe. And one thing that we've done that
I also love is that UM into your point on
communities is if somebody believes in you. And my mom's
a high school teacher. She runs actually the largest journalism
program in the country and UM and the number one
(32:19):
thing she sees is she's like, you just have to
believe in the kids, like you believe in them. And
it's kind of what we do. Our philosophy with genetics
and science is anyone can be a scientist. You know,
it's not scientists have like kind of created this elitist
society of like big words and complicated and like New
England Journal is not really the prettiest magazine to read,
and like there's not it's really not user friendly. And
(32:40):
I think scientists have created almost this elitist like I
have a white coat and I have a degree, and
you call me doctor. And what we try to do
is like say, like anyone could be a scientist. You're
in eighth grade, you want to be a geneticist. Damn,
here's your genome. You can learn about it. And I
think the more products that are out there where you
just believe in people, people can rise. Like I love
(33:02):
seeing when I see kids and like people of all
education levels all around the country who come to me
with sophisticated questions and they're like, I was researching my genome.
I saw this mutation I have, and I'm like overwhelmed
at like the differences in education levels. Anyone can be
a scientist. You just have to believe in people. I
just like enjoying that. It's feeling that this might be
(33:23):
a too obvious a point, but I think the fact
that we are so similar, the fact that all of
us have so much potential, it just shows us even
more reason why we should treat each other fairly and
treat each other with love, no matter where we come from, um,
no matter how far apart we are physically, And that
really is infusing everything that I do in my career,
(33:47):
both on the creative side and on the philanthropic side,
is that we should all love each other, and we
should all respect each other's humanity and and treat each
other as though we understand that we have so much
in common. I think when I look holistically at the
world and see, um, you know, the traveling everyone wants like,
people are traveling, people are exploring the world, um, you know,
(34:08):
much more than they were twenty years ago. And the
world is becoming a lot smaller and it's becoming mixed.
So I'm really optimistic. I think about where the potential
of um connectivity by everybody, and I think it's it's
challenging because we live in a pretty um complicated time
where there is a lot of animosity and there's a
lot of hatred that's being surfaced, and I think in
(34:30):
some ways like that conflict to me feels like an
opportunity to seize the dialogue and to take advantage of
the fact that people are actually starting to explore the
world more and more and recognize that we are more similar.
So I think about that conflict does an opportunity again
of like reaching out to people who actually do have
a very different opinion and who feel very different and
(34:52):
actually trying to understand and and through that. I actually think,
you know, I think in the fifty years, I think
the world's gonna be much better place. I'm really optimistic
and I and again, I see how much we have
been able to change people in little bits and celebrate
the diversity. Like I just I so love like there's
nothing better than going to a community that's totally different
(35:14):
than yours. And that sense of like I am learning
on every every one of my senses is absorbing something new,
and the fact that people evolved in different ways is
it's just so cool. In that time, we're going to
celebrate that more and more and the more people are
seizing that opportunity. And I think, again, we're living in
in such a complicated dark time, um, but I really
(35:38):
think that we will rise pretty magnificently from these ashes.
I love Bill Gates because one of the things he
talked about is how much the world's gotten better just
any uses data talk about the disease eradication, UM, literacy rates,
poverty rates, and almost the rate of just wars. And
you think about it. We had World War Two, like
(35:59):
the tens of millions of people that died. Uh. You
look at all these wars we've had in the history
of of the world, and sometimes we lament what's happening
right now, but we have to realize, like we have
made some progress as as a species and and and
and uh learning how to live with each other and
uh learning to fight some of these UM demons that
kind of bedeviled us for a long time. That's where
(36:20):
I get some of my optimism from, is just thinking
about the arc of human history and how we're getting
better at living with each other, even as you know
they're more of us, and you know, we kind of
interact with a larger groups of people around the world.
We're getting a little bit better at uh at figuring
out how to navigate that and get better outcomes for
more people. UM. And I think that's a good thing,
(36:41):
and hopefully that will continue. I don't think it's necessarily
true that that will continue to UH in a straight
line towards positivity and greatness. We have to be vigilant
and make sure that we uh we continue to steer
our society in that direction and to the extent that
we can. But we should good in some sense that
(37:02):
the world has gotten better. It's safer, it's healthier, it's
you know, better educated, more, more equal, um more fair
in a lot more ways than I think sometimes we
give ourselves credit for. But that that's a testament to
people actually working to do it. It's it's a testament
to NGO is going into communities and making sure more
people have access to medicine and vaccines. And it's a
(37:25):
credit to governments deciding we're going to do better and
and and address the needs of our people. It's a
credit to people that actually have taken the time and
energy and the and the desire to go and actually
make change. I think, I guess it's just exactly what
you said here. It is the power of the individual
to make a difference. Like I remember very well, I
(37:46):
was told in high school one person can't make a difference,
And I feel like we're living in a time where
it's the exact opplicite. Like we see day in and
day out, how much one person can make a difference,
and like you reaching out to someone and you doing
something like it's the responsibility of each one of us
that is actually is aware and wants to make it different,
like to do it and actually to like reach out
(38:07):
and stretch yourself. And I I love like I tried
to push people in the coming, like feeling uncomfortable is good,
Like push yourself, and you will make mistakes, like you'll
say the wrong thing, you'll offend someone, like all these
things are recoverable, Like, but keep pushing yourself to try
and make a difference, and you can. Well, you two
have made a lot of a difference, uh, in this
(38:28):
interview in your work. We have literally the arts and
sciences in this discussion today, and that's a big chunk
of our humanity. So thank you for your time. Thank
you for the positivity I'm infected with us. Thank you,
and for like me that I'm probably the black panther.
I'm going to come back to you confirmed, all right,
(38:49):
Thank you both. I want to dig in more on
today's topics and guests. Check our show notes and if
you enjoyed the episode, share it with the friend all
your friends and be sure to leave a review. If
you want to hear more surprising stories about how we're
all related, search and follow Spit on I Heart Radio
or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Spit is an
(39:10):
I Heart Radio podcast with twenty three in me. I'm
baritune Day Thurston. You can find out more about me
at bartune day dot com or sign up from a
text message. It's just hit me up at two O
two nine O two seven nine four nine. Put hashtag
Spit Podcasts in your message. I know where you came from.
I'm Baritone Day Thurston and this is spit and I
Heart Radio podcast with twenty three and Me. This is
the podcast that explores how our DNA is changing our
lives and the world around us. For our first show,
we'll explore how are we all related? The most drastic
examples of violence in humanity that we have, we're often
justified by people thinking that someone who looked a little
(00:25):
bit different or worshiped a little bit differently. But I
feel like we're becoming closer together in the world is
becoming less violent, more empathetic, and we're helping each other
more than we ever used to. You're not that different
from other humans. You're actually genetically really similar, and that's
the reality. I am here with two guests who are
changing the world, one through culture, one through science. We
(00:48):
have a Grammy Oscar Tony and hopefully soon Emmy Award
winning certainly nominated artist, philanthropist and Rose purveyor Mr John Legend.
Welcome to the rooms. Thank you, thank you, good to
You also have the co founder and CEO of twenty
three and me. Please welcome and thank you. Do your
(01:09):
name okay, perfect, got the name? Got the name? Everyone
needs to do we got to warm up, so you
all warm. We're going to talk about what DNA means
to us, the story that it tells us about who
we are and how we're all related. And I want
to start with you, John. Have you done a DNA
(01:31):
test before and if so, what have you found out
about where you're from? Yeah? I did a DNA test.
I learned a lot about the stories of my ancestors,
some of whom were slaves in America, and some of
the courage that they displayed on one group in my
family history. Literally, UM fought in court for their freedom,
(01:53):
and the state of Ohio defended them, the state where
I grew up and was born, defend exactly why I
root for the guys UM. They defended my family in
court because someone who was UM descendants of their their
masters before UM, tried to reclaim them back into slavery
(02:13):
back into the South when they were living in Ohio,
and Ohio went and defended them. Uh. You, So Ohio
defended ancestors of yours from being kidnapped by folks from
back into the South. But also they give you the
literal breakdown of where they think your ancestry comes from.
You got like the John Legend recipe. Yeah, the recipe.
People want to know what the recipe is. So I
(02:34):
found out I was two thirds of African descent, West
African and one third mostly European descent. Um, you know,
like western and northern northern Europe. This is very exciting
for me. Yeah, um, black and the job black, the job.
I feel like black people we kind of know our
level of blackness. We can look at each other. We
(02:56):
look at the skin tones and we're like, oh, it
looks like he's mixed, or he looks like he's just right. Yes,
I turned it turned out I was two thirds. So
you know, whatever that says, that's what it says. Um,
it's very American. And I think, Um, when both of
your parents consider themselves black, they have about the same
complexion I do, and probably a similar mix um uh
(03:18):
that I do. You're raised black, you know, they think
of themselves as black, So you think of yourself as black,
no matter whatever other mixes in there. In America kind
of tells you you're black as well, by the way
America treats you and by the way that America looks
at you. Um. And so I never really kind of
accounted for a thought about the other parts of my mix,
because I thought, well, I'm black, and that's what I am, um,
(03:42):
And you know, we know what light skin and dark skin,
and you know, you know brown skin or whatever is uh.
And we talked about that in the community of black folks.
But at the end of the day, we think of
ourselves as black most of the time unless you have
a parent who's of another race, and then it kind
of complicates it more. So that's what I thought of
myself as. And then I got the details on it
when I took the test. Did that change what you
(04:04):
told yourself about who you are or where you're from?
You know, because I think, um, I always thought of
myself and I think also considering myself black, would also
consider myself African American, which um, African American to me
means the possibility that you're mixed with probability and and
probably that that mixture comes from probably a story that's
(04:25):
not so good, which is a lot of times the
white blood in our ancestry comes from rape and from
domination from um, white male slave masters towards black women.
So we know that story. A lot of us in
our community know that story, and so when we think
about our ancestry and we know that part of it's white,
we know that there's a good chance that part of
(04:47):
that whiteness comes from something that was pretty evil and
violent and um destructive. Uh So it's an interesting thing
to grapple with. And it's part of the American story
and the African American story that slavery can never be
kind of erased out of the conversation because so much
of that history and affects our legacy. Now. Yeah, and
it's literally in the DNA. It's literally in our DNA,
(05:09):
which is a nice segue to you, And what do
you know about your genetic story and your DNA story
where you're from. Well, both my parents are relative, you know,
my my father's first generation, my mom's parents, they immigrated here.
It was interesting because we're obviously we're one of the
first people that were ever that was ever sequenced or
every ginotyped um and so my mother is Jewish, my
(05:31):
father is Catholic. And it's interesting because it was the
first time we got the DNA back and you could
so clearly see I remember my sister saying, she was like,
it's eerily creepy. How accurate it is like the DNA
really shows up. So I'm half Jewish, half European, and
so I have a tiny bit of Croatian. So I
was actually like we were excited for the World Cup.
We were actually I was I was thinking about what
(05:53):
part of what team do I want to root for.
I was like, well, I got that one person in Croatian,
so therefore I'm like, I'm rolling for it. Um. I
love DNAs and the excuse to root for a World
Cup completely completely For black people, that meant root for
France exactly. So what was interesting is my grandmothers from Siberia,
and she looked very Asian, like you know, my great
(06:15):
grandparents and more and more, and so we always had
this belief we're like, we're just part Mongolian, like we
know what, like they're from, you know, an area that
was similar to Mongolia or close to Mongolia. And then
when we got our DNA, that was actually our Bible
disappointment because we were so you know, determined, we're like
we're like part Mongolian and we're really not. We're not
at all. That's what it was for me and Native
(06:36):
American because you grew up in black families and so
many of us kind of have this mythology or something
in our community where we're like, yeah, we're part of
Indian for some reason or another. And I think a
lot of particular light skinned folks might have come up
with that as a kind of way of not acknowledging
their white ancestry. But it turns out no, no, it
(06:57):
was like one or two percent. Uh, And then you know,
it's definitely one of the most common we see people
who have you know, who think that they know what
their ancestry. And that's part of the reality is like
you get you get a decent amount of non paternity.
A lot of people, you know, are not necessarily related
to the father that they think. And people have been
you know, there's different stories about where you've actually been.
So the reality of whatever you look like today, you
(07:19):
can look a certain way, but what's in your DNA
can actually be quite different. Yeah, and then and what's
in the story that you have to be different from
within your DNA? How much nonpaternity are you guys getting?
You know, it's fantastic stories. I think coming the show,
it's it's interesting, how um, I mean, I feel like
over the last twelve years we've you start a company
(07:42):
and you think you're starting for all kinds of reasons,
and um, you realize ten years later the consequences of
all the all the things that you you sort of anticipated,
but you didn't realize quite the impact it would have.
And I would say one of those things is nonpaternity.
And you always know it's out there, but it's out
there with a frequency that probably every single family has story.
So if you imagine that the nation average is about
(08:02):
ten percent if you go back three generations. UM. I
always joke that you have someone in your family whose
uncle Joe, who's actually just Joe, and it's relatively high.
But you know, you go back statistically, you have enough
people in your in your family three generations there's someone
(08:25):
there that everyone has a story. And that's the type
of thing like we just found recently that we just
found a first cousin and it's interesting, like we we
kind of um, like I I kind of felt for
this guy who you know, he was adopted and was
looking for his family. And the guy logs in and
holy cow, like there's a lot of us on twenty
three and like, not only that he can see he's
(08:48):
related to the founder. Um so no, and it's and
it's amazing, like we um know, we've we've I mean,
we're we see him right, I Mean it's great. And
that one thing that I've learned, like one of the
most interesting things I think that's come out of twenty
three ME that we're grappling with as a site, what
is the definition of family? And you know, is it
just based on genetics or is it based on you know,
(09:11):
the community that you grew up with. And people come
to me all the time and they say, all these
people think they're my cousins and they're they keep emailing
me on twenty three ME, and I'll say, I was like,
well they are, Like it's it's all that they think
they are. You have DNA in common with these people,
like you are, so you know, And and it goes
to again, one of the main things I think that
I've learned with twenty three ME is how much the
world is genuinely connected like we have. Like again, I
(09:33):
grew up in the era of we are the world
and singing that and um and you believe it, But
but now I can see it, like scientifically, I can
see that the entire that we are the world, like
we're genetically connected, not just to each other as human,
but every living thing on this planet, Like there is
a common like life all evolved in one way, and
(09:54):
you're connected like you know, you're connected to the trees,
You're connected to you know, the animals running around, You're
connected to everything here. Everything has the common four letders
of d n A And there's a beautiful story of
evolution and how we've evolved and sort of how you've
been optimized as well. I mean to me, that's where
like we are all connected, we are all, we are
(10:15):
the world. So so in the scientific grounding, there was
a lot that you both just just offered up. And
one thing I heard from both of you is the
story versus the science of who we are, whether racially
right scientifically your one third white, but your identity is
black because that's what you grew up with. And you
(10:35):
know you had a story of mongolia, and the science said, well,
actually not at all. But this common ground, these letters
that unite us all we find a way to exacerbate
the divisions very effectively. Right, we're not a nine point
the same as humans, but that point five percent is
(10:56):
an area we have been eager to explore, to put
it positively, UM. And so I think for you, John,
what are you? What have you seen in some of
your work in the way you connect with people through music,
but then certainly your activism about how we explore and
exploit that very small technical, scientific division. Yeah, it's interesting
because I think part of the goal of art is
(11:16):
to bring us together and and and get in touch
with our soul and and um connect us through like
a common human experience. I play my music and in
New York, I played in Los Angeles, also played in
Johannesburg and Cape Town, I played in Lagos, I play
it in Sam Paolo, I play it in Beijing. And
(11:36):
I feel like there's so much that unites us and
that connects us to each other. And I think art
is a really powerful way to kind of highlight that
and to inspire that connection to even become closer. And
I think storytelling, particularly comes to TV and film, has
the power to help us empathize with other people when
it comes to other experiences that may not be our own,
(11:59):
or even seeing um that people living um thousands of
miles away can have common experiences, UH, that we face
and have common desires and loves and wants and and
UM fears. And I think that's part of the power
of art UM. But also obviously UM, like you said,
those those small differences have inspired a lot of war,
(12:23):
inspired a lot of discrimination, inspired slavery, and all these
other awful things. Holocausts are, you know, the most drastic
examples of violence and in humanity that we have. As well,
we're often justified by people thinking that someone who looked
a little bit different or worshiped a little bit bit
differently wasn't human in the same way, or wasn't enough
(12:46):
like them too for them to feel empathy or love
towards them, And UM use their fear of their difference
to UM justify a lot of violence and in humanity.
So we've seen all of that, UM. But I feel
like we're becoming more and more connected around the world.
I feel like we're learning more and more about how
much we have in common. I feel like we're seeing
(13:08):
each other more and more than we ever were before.
We're living more closely together than we ever were before.
And media has brought us together more so that we're
experiencing the same things more than we ever used to.
And so part of me is optimistic, even though we're
in dark time sometimes and and sometimes we are really
(13:29):
in disagreement with losing leadership and and some of the
inhumanity that is as coming from our leadership. UM. I
think overall, in the ark of the world, I think
we're becoming closer together, and the world is becoming less
violent and and more empathetic, and we're helping each other
more than we ever used to. Thank you for that. UM,
(13:50):
the way you cast the role of art, multiple modes
of it, it appeared to me as as UM, you've
got this bird's eye view from Manila to San Quentin,
Los Angeles, and you also have a bird's e view,
and you know from the five million users of your platform,
which is one of many, but you you have a
(14:11):
particular window. What do you see? I mean, do you
have a parallel version of what John C's through being
in the field with the art and also seeing the divisions.
Are you seeing a similar level of connectivity but also
division in that scale that you have access to? I
think people, you know, you go back twenty years ago
when I was little and we moved, you know, my
parents would take us to Thailand and it was like
(14:32):
Oh my god, it's like shock, Like it's so it's
such a different you know, culture, it's a different people.
We moved to France. It's just it was different, Like
it felt so different. And I think one of the
things that's interesting that we can start to portraying you
in your DNA is one we're appealing to your ego.
It's all about you, like we just taught you all
about you, and you are fascinating, like everyone is fast
(14:53):
garantee guarantees succeing you are fascinating, and and suddenly it's
a sense of like I know myself and I'm fascinating,
and holy cow, like I'm really similar to this person who,
like you know, lives in a tribe in rural Africa
and is totally different than me, and we're really similar,
like genetically. Like the foundation Again, this isn't what we
(15:16):
started the company to do, but I actually think it's
a really beautiful consequence is that people do start to
recognize that they're more similar and in some ways, like
for me being sort of the nerdy scientists, like each
mutation that has made you slightly different, friends writer insulting me,
(15:40):
we all have makes this because the mutations. But like
the reality is, like mutations are why we have this
spectacular people in the world. Like who's saying both, like
he's amazing because he has spectacular mutations that like that's why,
like he's evolved in such a way that he can
obviously run really fast. And you evolved in a way that,
(16:01):
like your ancestors evolved so like you have darker skin
that protects you. Like people with like bright you know,
blonde hair, blue eyes evolved in such a way so
that they could actually capture more sun. So because otherwise
you're not gonna get as much of like the nutrients
you need from your son from the sun. So every
every mutation is a story of survival. And and I
(16:22):
think when you can look at that and say, like
we're meant to evolve and we're meant to survive, and
because of that, you know, you can see this really
interesting in terms of like virus in in infectious diseases.
So the nineteen eighteen flu which killed you know, uh,
millions of people. I don't know if it's millions or
if it was a million um but there's certain people
who have a genetic mutation that make them resistant to it.
(16:44):
The same thing with HIV. There's certain people on this
planet who are genetically resistant to HIV, and so similarly,
like we're all meant to be a tiny bit different
to make sure that the next generation is going to
be even better than what we are today. And so
part of for me is celebrate ing that we do
have these like slight genetic differences because it gives me
hope that like in a thousand years, like it's going
(17:06):
to be even more interesting than it is today. And
that by appealing to the ego through the twenty three experience,
and like we teach you about you, you realize like
you're not You're just not that different. You're not that
different from other humans. You're actually genetically really similar. So
you have certain genes in your body that all different
living species have. And so you can look at your
(17:27):
DNA and what present of your DNA is similar to
a mouse, and we can see there's like certain things
that are really fundamental, like they have two eyes, a mouth,
so that kind of thing, like those are conserved, like
you're you're actually and again, like my dream one day
and my team always is like, and um, I want this,
Like I want to map from the beginning of life
(17:47):
to have like when did we branch off? Like when
we're they're like different trees, and when did the mouse
and when of the humans? Like we're all connected, Like
I want the whole tree of life, like but it's
started from the same place, Like all really have that
similar Like that's why I love Like we have the
same like all of us have the same grandparents. So
like it's it's like it's so interesting and I think
(18:09):
that again, like the beauty of it is appealing to
the ego, Like let me teach you about you and
then we'll teach you about the world. Just pro tip
if you can't appeal to my ego. Mice like veloso raptor, eagle, lions, lions, panthers,
you know, hanging out more than my daughter. It was like,
(18:31):
I want to be related to the bonny rabbit, so
I need more time with you. He likes panthers like eagles,
lion the path. I love it. I love it. Okay,
Well let me find out those genetics of those, Okay,
I want I just basically I want scientific proof that
I'm black panthers, a black panther. That would be my
(18:56):
follow up to I love it. Oh so so um
within your family, John, how do you all you have
a mixed race family children, you're talking about my my
wife and my kids, your wife and kids. How do
you all talk about your identities? How do you with
the narrative you build? Have you done the whole family
(19:17):
genetic tests? Well, our kids are old enough to really
talk about race. Yet. My family, my wife and I
are very aware of where we come from. And she's
a mixed race as well. And so she's one of
those people that looks like she could be a bunch
of things. So people ask her what are you all
the time? And she said, so, I feel like for
(19:38):
people that look like Chrissie, I think a lot of
times it's almost annoying how much you get asked what
you are all the time. But she's also proud of
her heritage. She's her mother was born and raised in
a village in Thailand, and her father, Um, his family
came from Northern Europe, Germany and Norway, and they moved
to America, you know, in the late dred early nine
(20:00):
for a better life and and uh and you know,
he's one of the first generations born here from a
family that came from Northern Europe and he met um
Chrissie's mom in Thailand, and Chrissy is the result of
that beautiful uh marriage. So, UM, when our kids grow up,
they're gonna have a grandmother who was born in a
(20:22):
village in Thailand, and they're gonna have my mother who
was born in Springfield, Ohio as an African American woman.
And they're gonna have all of this interesting heritage, and
part of it will be the fun of learning about
the different cultures that they come from. Um, they're gonna
have Thai foo, They're gonna have so food, They're gonna
have you know, European American food. You know, they're gonna
(20:42):
have all of that. Um. And they're gonna travel the
world with us and and and hopefully they'll grow up
in a world that's even more loving and more accepting
of difference, uh than the one we grew up in.
And um, they'll have pride in their family ancestry as well.
And you've mentioned a couple of times that some of
(21:03):
what you're seeing through twenty three isn't what you exactly
planned for. Where else has what you've seen deviated from
what you expected? A couple of I think specifically actually
as relet in this conversation is UM the perceptions of race. UM.
We see a lot of conversation about like what is
(21:24):
like again, I we we started up very much as
like this is about genetics. We're going to really change
the pace of research. Like we're about you know, empower
people with diseases. You know, come together, you're gonna learn
about yourself. It was very much focused on health and
I feel like we've gotten into suddenly UM we impact
identity and UM. And when you think about identity, you
(21:45):
start getting into the race question. And I had no
again with we have this feature called ancestry composition where
it really does UM. You know, it shows you all
the things we talked about your breakdown. And we have
stories like one of my favorite is was this woman
who was adopted and you know, she came she found
through twenty three me. She was part of UM, this
(22:07):
reindeer people up in the Sami people up in the
Arctic Circle. She quits her job, she's a phenomenal job
in the Bay Area, quits her job and moves to
the Arctic Circle to like live with the rainbeard people.
And she writes me two years later and she said,
you know, I've never been happier. I've dedicated all of
my marketing efforts to giving voice to these people. I
(22:27):
feel at home for the first time. And I take
this story and I walk over to my research team
and I go, you better be right because and I
because again, we started as like it was very much
focused on UM, you know, scientific research and you know,
(22:49):
a lot of disease work and making sure and suddenly
I have people changing their whole identity based on the
information that we're that we're giving them. And we have
another story in People magazine a few years ago, and
we were just reading the title and I think it's UM.
You know, Jewish woman with four UM biracial children, discovers
(23:10):
her father UM and grandfather were a grand clansman and
UM and so here it's one of these stories like
and it's it's so crazy because she was the product
of a fling and UM, raged Jewish married an African
American man, has biracial children and discovers her father, who
is very racist, who's UM. Her grandfather was a grand clansman.
(23:33):
UM was arrested for actually trying to bomb UM. You know,
one of the first African American schools, and Aria is saying,
I have to I'm gonna love my grandchildren. He's seventy four,
so like I have to have a mind shift. Um,
I'm gonna spend time with my daughter's husband. And it's interesting.
The article is very raw because it's like it's not
it's not like it's harmony on day one. It's not like, oh,
(23:55):
I was wrong for seventy years. But it's like we're
going to talk about it, and he's I've committed. I'm
going to spend time with my grandchildren. I'm gonna love them.
And I think that's the kind of Again, like I didn't,
we didn't start the company thinking this, but like that's
I think where when you find a real meaningful connection
with somebody who's totally different than you, I think it
(24:16):
opens your mind, like you're going to then be more
open to it. And I think, again, the more it's
where I love the idea of combining sort of Facebook
social networking world with people who are totally different from you,
but they're genetically similar. And how much can we actually
have an impact on helping understand differences. Well, do you
(24:36):
get involved in the nature nurture conversation people are always
having because in some ways people are taking the information
you give them and almost recrafting their life to kind
of let their genes in some way determine who they are.
But also there's a side where people aren't don't have
to be determined by their genetic background and by who
their ancestry is. Uh in some ways as well. Right,
(25:00):
I think there's a whole you know, the nature nurture
debate is what captured captivated me. I don't know, six
years old. The first time I heard about it, I
was like, this is fascinating, Like what is it the
potential to do? And then what can I change in
my environment? When I was six, um, I was fascinated
by glue. Well, today that's also a popular activity with slime.
I don't know how much slime you're making, but we
(25:21):
do a lot of slime in my household. So the
nature nurture conversation is fascinating because you have certain things
that you know, if you have the genetic mutation for
breast cancer, you're just high risk, like very high risk.
There's definitely things that you can do in your environment
to to impact it. I have a high blood pressure
and high cholesterol. And that's where there's like there's especially
(25:43):
on the health side. You might know at an early
age your higher risk for blood pressure. Okay, do you
actually change the kind of salt that you intake in
your life? Do you actually from day one just try
to say if you knew your high risk for addiction?
Do you just say, okay, you know what? Like when
I if you haven't, I just had knee surgery, Like
no fent in all for me, Like no no dream drops,
Like just like, how is it that you can take
this information and say I'm going to impact a little
(26:05):
bit of what I'm exposed to. I'm a huge believer
as well in the power to overcome, like your mindset,
like I love the ten hours theory, like you dedicate
your time. You dedicate huge effort into anything you want
to do, and you can be pretty great at it.
So you definitely have some aspects like I'm not you know,
how musical could I really be if I really dedicated myself?
(26:27):
Could I ever like be your sidekick? I think not.
I would love I'm a great backup to answer though.
Um So I think that it is and I think
the nature nurture question is something that we're continuing to
understand just how much do your genes impact the outcome
of who you've been. Clearly environments huge, and so I
(26:50):
think that's where it gives people an opportunity to say, hey,
here's here's potentially what you were born with. But there's
a lot of potential and the decisions that you make.
And one thing I try to emphasize to people is
that the decision you know, to me, I'm forty four,
I've made a lot of decisions in my life. So
it's not like I just wake up today and I'm like, hey,
like I'm going to start fresh, Like hey, it's always
good to start over, But every single day of the
(27:11):
last forty four years has had an impact on me
and who I am today. So it's important for people,
Like every single day when you're making that decision about
Garrido's and ho ho, it's like it has an impact
cumulatively over time. Yeah, and every decision that other people
make two that around you, So like what kind of
schools you're able to go to, what uh kind of
parenting you're exposed to, and all these other decisions impact
(27:35):
that all of that. When you started talking Anne about
you know at forty four, you don't just make a
fresh start. And then I'm thinking about your work John
with Free America and folks who didn't have the ten
thousand hours you know, or had very limited access to
the types of ten thousand hours because they were incarcerating,
but they are, you know, many of them are returning
and trying to have a start. Can you talk a
(27:56):
little bit more about that that you know, the this
is that different form of cher It's like the opportunity
of nurture. Well, I'm believing that people can grow and
then they can learn, and I experience that in the
work that we do around education and around the criminal
justice system. Because if you look at because a lot
of times, I think a lot of people are kind
of in their mind they think you just are who
(28:17):
you are. Like John can sing, he was just he
just is a good singer. He's a good pianist, he
was just meant to be a musician. But if I
didn't spend a lot of time practicing, there's no way
I could have gotten better to the point where I
could be who I am today. Because a lot of
people have some kind of grain of talent that isn't
cultivated that isn't UM, that isn't nurtured in any way,
and they don't make it to where I am because
(28:38):
of that. UM. And so when we look at our
school systems, UM, we have to decide are we doing
the right kinds of things to help these young people
with the seed of talent or spark or whatever they have.
Are we helping them become the best person that they
can be? And on the back end, are we creating
situations where they're not exposed to good education. They're not
(28:59):
exposed is the good neighborhoods, and they're exposed a lot
of trauma. They're exposed a lot of things that alter
and I believe trauma actually alters your genetic makeup. I believe.
And Uh, if they're exposed to all these kinds of
negative inputs, UM, how bad are we messing them up
so that the criminal justice tem is eventually going to
have to deal with them because we put them in
a situation where they're more likely to commit crying, they're
(29:20):
more likely to be unemployed, and more likely to have
all these other issues that they have to deal with, UM,
that we as a society end up dealing with because
they might get addicted to drugs or some other thing
that happens because of all the trauma and all the
difficulties that they've seen, And so a lot of times
I'm thinking about how do we make our society better
so that the front end we're investing in education and
(29:42):
healthy communities and all that we need, and then in
the back end that we're not over incarcerating and destroying
communities by by being too Dracronian in our criminal justice system.
You you know, I I started this by saying, like,
we have two people here who are changing the world
through culture through science, but it also you've both used
language around helping us be the best versions of ourselves
(30:07):
and you know, through art, through action, through education, through
scientific inquiry, through products. Really, um, that's not a question.
That was just a statement, and I thought maybe there
would be a question mark at the end of there's
so much potential that we have. Just think about Just
think about sexism, for instance, when you waste the talent
and potential of half of the population, Just think about
(30:28):
just think about how destructive that is for the community,
And just think how how underutilized the community is. When
you say half of the population can only reach this
glass ceiling and can't be their best self. Um, and
you put rules and structures in place to make that
kind of reinforced, it's such a waste. And if we're
doing that with whole neighborhoods, if we're doing that with
(30:50):
half of the population when it comes to women, when
we're doing that, uh, with entire racial groups. And in
America where you know, twelve percent of us are black
or another you know for a teen or so are Hispanic.
And if you're wasting the talent because you're saying, these
people don't get included in the American dream, they don't
get included in what we think of as people that
deserve a good education or healthy community. UM, it's such
(31:15):
a waste. One of the things that we always say
in the company is that everyone's good at something and
and we see this even just from how we operate
the company. As you know, someone can join on a
certain team and not necessarily execute well, and we give
an opportunity to go into another team. You know, they
move some people then who move on to their third
team and then they're great. And UM, and I think about,
(31:35):
like I was really lucky as a kid my parents,
I worked a lot of different jobs, and I was
given a lot of opportunities, but it's it's hard to
necessarily find what you love. And like part of the
reason why I like, I absolutely love what I do now,
like I have, I'm lucky. But everyone's good at something,
you know. Warren Buffett always says, you know, if he
had been you know, raised in you know, Hunter Gather society,
he would not be thriving right now. Like he's really not.
(31:57):
He's not meant for you know, he found what he's
really good at. UM. So I think that that's where
it's like, more and more we try to help people
like really believe. And one thing that we've done that
I also love is that UM into your point on
communities is if somebody believes in you. And my mom's
a high school teacher. She runs actually the largest journalism
program in the country and UM and the number one
(32:19):
thing she sees is she's like, you just have to
believe in the kids, like you believe in them. And
it's kind of what we do. Our philosophy with genetics
and science is anyone can be a scientist. You know,
it's not scientists have like kind of created this elitist
society of like big words and complicated and like New
England Journal is not really the prettiest magazine to read,
and like there's not it's really not user friendly. And
(32:40):
I think scientists have created almost this elitist like I
have a white coat and I have a degree, and
you call me doctor. And what we try to do
is like say, like anyone could be a scientist. You're
in eighth grade, you want to be a geneticist. Damn,
here's your genome. You can learn about it. And I
think the more products that are out there where you
just believe in people, people can rise. Like I love
(33:02):
seeing when I see kids and like people of all
education levels all around the country who come to me
with sophisticated questions and they're like, I was researching my genome.
I saw this mutation I have, and I'm like overwhelmed
at like the differences in education levels. Anyone can be
a scientist. You just have to believe in people. I
just like enjoying that. It's feeling that this might be
(33:23):
a too obvious a point, but I think the fact
that we are so similar, the fact that all of
us have so much potential, it just shows us even
more reason why we should treat each other fairly and
treat each other with love, no matter where we come from, um,
no matter how far apart we are physically, And that
really is infusing everything that I do in my career,
(33:47):
both on the creative side and on the philanthropic side,
is that we should all love each other, and we
should all respect each other's humanity and and treat each
other as though we understand that we have so much
in common. I think when I look holistically at the
world and see, um, you know, the traveling everyone wants like,
people are traveling, people are exploring the world, um, you know,
(34:08):
much more than they were twenty years ago. And the
world is becoming a lot smaller and it's becoming mixed.
So I'm really optimistic. I think about where the potential
of um connectivity by everybody, and I think it's it's
challenging because we live in a pretty um complicated time
where there is a lot of animosity and there's a
lot of hatred that's being surfaced, and I think in
(34:30):
some ways like that conflict to me feels like an
opportunity to seize the dialogue and to take advantage of
the fact that people are actually starting to explore the
world more and more and recognize that we are more similar.
So I think about that conflict does an opportunity again
of like reaching out to people who actually do have
a very different opinion and who feel very different and
(34:52):
actually trying to understand and and through that. I actually think,
you know, I think in the fifty years, I think
the world's gonna be much better place. I'm really optimistic
and I and again, I see how much we have
been able to change people in little bits and celebrate
the diversity. Like I just I so love like there's
nothing better than going to a community that's totally different
(35:14):
than yours. And that sense of like I am learning
on every every one of my senses is absorbing something new,
and the fact that people evolved in different ways is
it's just so cool. In that time, we're going to
celebrate that more and more and the more people are
seizing that opportunity. And I think, again, we're living in
in such a complicated dark time, um, but I really
(35:38):
think that we will rise pretty magnificently from these ashes.
I love Bill Gates because one of the things he
talked about is how much the world's gotten better just
any uses data talk about the disease eradication, UM, literacy rates,
poverty rates, and almost the rate of just wars. And
you think about it. We had World War Two, like
(35:59):
the tens of millions of people that died. Uh. You
look at all these wars we've had in the history
of of the world, and sometimes we lament what's happening
right now, but we have to realize, like we have
made some progress as as a species and and and
and uh learning how to live with each other and
uh learning to fight some of these UM demons that
kind of bedeviled us for a long time. That's where
(36:20):
I get some of my optimism from, is just thinking
about the arc of human history and how we're getting
better at living with each other, even as you know
they're more of us, and you know, we kind of
interact with a larger groups of people around the world.
We're getting a little bit better at uh at figuring
out how to navigate that and get better outcomes for
more people. UM. And I think that's a good thing,
(36:41):
and hopefully that will continue. I don't think it's necessarily
true that that will continue to UH in a straight
line towards positivity and greatness. We have to be vigilant
and make sure that we uh we continue to steer
our society in that direction and to the extent that
we can. But we should good in some sense that
(37:02):
the world has gotten better. It's safer, it's healthier, it's
you know, better educated, more, more equal, um more fair
in a lot more ways than I think sometimes we
give ourselves credit for. But that that's a testament to
people actually working to do it. It's it's a testament
to NGO is going into communities and making sure more
people have access to medicine and vaccines. And it's a
(37:25):
credit to governments deciding we're going to do better and
and and address the needs of our people. It's a
credit to people that actually have taken the time and
energy and the and the desire to go and actually
make change. I think, I guess it's just exactly what
you said here. It is the power of the individual
to make a difference. Like I remember very well, I
(37:46):
was told in high school one person can't make a difference,
And I feel like we're living in a time where
it's the exact opplicite. Like we see day in and
day out, how much one person can make a difference,
and like you reaching out to someone and you doing
something like it's the responsibility of each one of us
that is actually is aware and wants to make it different,
like to do it and actually to like reach out
(38:07):
and stretch yourself. And I I love like I tried
to push people in the coming, like feeling uncomfortable is good,
Like push yourself, and you will make mistakes, like you'll
say the wrong thing, you'll offend someone, like all these
things are recoverable, Like, but keep pushing yourself to try
and make a difference, and you can. Well, you two
have made a lot of a difference, uh, in this
(38:28):
interview in your work. We have literally the arts and
sciences in this discussion today, and that's a big chunk
of our humanity. So thank you for your time. Thank
you for the positivity I'm infected with us. Thank you,
and for like me that I'm probably the black panther.
I'm going to come back to you confirmed, all right,
(38:49):
Thank you both. I want to dig in more on
today's topics and guests. Check our show notes and if
you enjoyed the episode, share it with the friend all
your friends and be sure to leave a review. If
you want to hear more surprising stories about how we're
all related, search and follow Spit on I Heart Radio
or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Spit is an
(39:10):
I Heart Radio podcast with twenty three in me. I'm
baritune Day Thurston. You can find out more about me
at bartune day dot com or sign up from a
text message. It's just hit me up at two O
two nine O two seven nine four nine. Put hashtag
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