Technology

23andMe appoints three new board members following abrupt resignations

Published

1 year ago

October 29, 2024

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Anne Wojcicki attends the WSJ Magazine Style & Tech Dinner in Atherton, California, on March 15, 2023.

Kelly Sullivan | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

23andMe appointed three new independent directors to its board, the company announced Tuesday, one month after all seven of its previous directors abruptly resigned.

The new board members are Andre Fernandez, the former chief financial officer of WeWork; Jim Frankola, the former CFO of the enterprise cloud company Cloudera; and Mark Jensen, a tech advisor and former managing partner at Deloitte, according to a release. The only other board member is 23andMe’s co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki.

Fernandez, Frankola and Jensen will all serve on the board’s audit committee and compensation committee, the company said. Jensen will act as the lead independent director and chair of the compensation committee, while Fernandez will chair the audit committee.

“I am excited to welcome these three experienced directors to the 23andMe Board, and looking forward to working with them,” Wojcicki said in the release.

23andMe’s previous independent directors announced their resignation in a letter to Wojcicki in September, writing that they disagreed with her about the “strategic direction for the company.”

The genetic-testing company, once valued at $6 billion, has struggled since it went public in 2021 through a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Shares were hovering below $1 until 23andMe announced a 1-for-20 reverse stock split of the Company’s Class A and Class B common stock earlier this month.

The company’s stock was trading around $5 on Tuesday morning.

To help 23andMe explore potential paths forward, the previous independent directors on the company’s board formed a special committee in late March. Wojcicki submitted a proposal to take the company private in July, but it was rejected by the special committee, in part because it lacked committed financing and did not provide a premium to the closing price of 40 cents per share at the time.

The directors gave Wojcicki the opportunity to submit a more suitable revised proposal, but they did not receive one, according to the September letter.

“We believe that it is in the best interests of the Company’s shareholders that we resign from the Board rather than have a protracted and distracting difference of view with you as to the direction of the Company,” they wrote.

In the weeks following the board members’ departures, Wojcicki has repeatedly said she remains committed to taking the company private.

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Technology

Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup’s robots could ‘fracture a human skull’

Published

8 hours ago

November 21, 2025

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$Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup's robots could 'fracture a human skull'$

Startup Figure AI is developing general-purpose humanoid robots.

Figure AI

Figure AI, an Nvidia-backed developer of humanoid robots, was sued by the startup’s former head of product safety who alleged that he was wrongfully terminated after warning top executives that the company’s robots “were powerful enough to fracture a human skull.”

Robert Gruendel, a principal robotic safety engineer, is the plaintiff in the suit filed Friday in a federal court in the Northern District of California. Gruendel’s attorneys describe their client as a whistleblower who was fired in September, days after lodging his “most direct and documented safety complaints.”

The suit lands two months after Figure was valued at $39 billion in a funding round led by Parkway Venture Capital. That’s a 15-fold increase in valuation from early 2024, when the company raised a round from investors including Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and Microsoft.

In the complaint, Gruendel’s lawyers say the plaintiff warned Figure CEO Brett Adcock and Kyle Edelberg, chief engineer, about the robot’s lethal capabilities, and said one “had already carved a ¼-inch gash into a steel refrigerator door during a malfunction.”

The complaint also says Gruendel warned company leaders not to “downgrade” a “safety road map” that he had been asked to present to two prospective investors who ended up funding the company.

Gruendel worried that a “product safety plan which contributed to their decision to invest” had been “gutted” the same month Figure closed the investment round, a move that “could be interpreted as fraudulent,” the suit says.

The plaintiff’s concerns were “treated as obstacles, not obligations,” and the company cited a “vague ‘change in business direction’ as the pretext” for his termination, according to the suit.

Gruendel is seeking economic, compensatory and punitive damages and demanding a jury trial.

Figure didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did attorneys for Gruendel.

The humanoid robot market remains nascent today, with companies like Tesla and Boston Dynamics pursuing futuristic offerings, alongside Figure, while China’s Unitree Robotics is preparing for an IPO. Morgan Stanley said in a report in May that adoption is “likely to accelerate in the 2030s” and could top $5 trillion by 2050.

Read the filing here: