'Surprised and Disappointed': All Independent Board Members of 23andMe Resign, Leaving Only the CEO

Days aft proposing to settee a information breach suit for $30 million, 18-year-old familial testing institution 23andMe now faces different nationalist hurdle: Seven independent board of its committee resigned connected Tuesday through a pointed letter addressed to CEO Anne Wojcicki, who is now the only remaining personnel of the board.

The resigning directors, among whom were YouTube CEO Neal Mohan and Sequoia VC Roelof Botha, called retired Wojcicki for not submitting a "fully financed, afloat diligenced, actionable proposal" to return the institution backstage complete the past 5 months. They wrote that their strategical guidance for 23andMe was different from Wojcicki's.

"Because of that quality and because of your concentrated voting power, we judge that it is successful the champion interests of the Company's shareholders that we resign from the Board alternatively than person a prolonged and distracting quality of position pinch you arsenic to the guidance of the Company," they stated.

Related: 23andMe DNA Technology Helps Family Find Kidnapped Daughter After 51 Years

Wojcicki, who co-founded the institution successful 2006, controls 49% of 23andMe votes. In July, she submitted a proposal to bargain each the shares she didn't already ain astatine $0.40 per stock and return the institution private. A typical committee created by the institution rejected her proposal, stating that it wasn't successful the champion interests of shareholders.

Anne Wojcicki. Credit: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Wojcicki told labor in a memo connected Tuesday that she was "surprised and disappointed" by the resignations and would instantly statesman uncovering replacement directors. She stated that "taking 23andMe backstage will beryllium the champion opportunity for semipermanent success."

23andMe, which was valued astatine $6 billion successful 2021 soon aft going public, is now a penny banal worthy 34 cents per stock astatine the clip of writing. The institution has until November 4 to bring its banal value up to astatine slightest $1 per stock aliases consequence being delisted.

23andMe has faced a number of nationalist setbacks, including a information breach successful October that impacted astir 7 cardinal accounts and appeared to target group pinch Chinese aliases Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Customers revenge a people action suit successful January and 23andMe proposed a $30 cardinal colony earlier this month.

23andMe's halfway merchandise is simply a $99 ancestry kit that requires a customer to taxable their spit successful speech for familial insights. A $199 kit advertises wellness predisposition reports. The institution is besides developing narcotics in-house and testing them.

Related: 23andMe Hackers Selling Stolen User Data, Including DNA Profiles of 'Celebrities,' connected Dark Web