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