The genetics-testing startup, co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of a Google co-founder, recently confirmed a fresh layoff round to TechCrunch. A source close to the company tells us close to 18 staff were let go in that round. "They're hemorrhaging cash with no real business plan," said the tipster.

A cash bleed would help explain some other recent developments: co-founder Linda Avery left in September, saying she wanted to focus on Alzheimer's research, according to emails first published by Kara Swisher at All Thing D. And in June, 23andMe laid off close to 10 employees, according to both our current and prior tipsters. Layoff rounds of about 10 and 18 workers are quite significant for a startup that once had an estimated mere 30 on staff.

In another, way, though, the layoffs seem odd: Google just put $2.6 million into the company this past June as part of a $24 million financing round, and Wojcicki's husband Sergey Brin invested another $10 million prior to that. Wojcicki's company even started leasing space from Google. So why would the company be allowed to crater now?

We've been trying to get answers from 23andMe's publicists since last week and have yet to hear back. But we can guess at some possible reasons: To attract well-heeled customers for its $400 tests, the company has been shelling out to fly a zeppelin all over Silicon Valley, which can't be cheap (good thing for Google that the search giant may well own the zeppelin company, helping it recoup some of its investment). Come to think of it, genetic tests can't be cheap either, and the price must seem especially high when customers learn they are buying "recreational genomics" rather than proper medical tests.

Recreational though they may be, 23andMe's tests can at least give clues about a person's medical future. For corporations, they are useless. Perhaps someone can come up with a genetic test for founders that will help predict startup success. We can think of 28 or so recently-fired people who'd be keenly interested in signing up.

(Pic: Wojcicki, by Esther Dyson)

23andMe, you'll recall, is the genetics-testing company founded by Anne Wojciki (left), wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Google is an investor in 23andMe and leases the company office space.

A tipster recently spotted a 23AndMe "blimp" flying around Cupertino and the rest of Silicon Valley. Some digging revealed the "blimp" is, in fact, a zeppelin, provided by a company called Airship Ventures.

Airship Ventures, in turn, is funded by Google, according to some strong evidence we wrote about previously. It's also funded by "futurist" Esther Dyson. Dyson, like Google, also invests in 23AndMe.

Dyson, as it turned out, is also funded by Google; "I have fed at its trough many times," she once wrote, citing speaking gigs and advisory board slots. She has, in turn, been something of an advocate, declaring publicly that Google actively fights evil and should be allowed to regulate itself (she disclosed her ties to the company when saying this).

So, here are some of the interlocking money flows:

• Google has given money to its founder's wife's firm 23AndMe, which in turn has given money (or other consideration) to Airship Ventures, owned by Google itself (it would appear) and by Google vendor and public Google advocate Esther Dyson.
• Google has given money and/or co-invested with "futurist" Dyson, who has in turn given money to 23AndMe, a Google investment co-founded by it's own co-founder's wife.
• 23AndMe gives money to Google, for office space, while Google gives money to 23AndMe as an investment; 23AndMe then hires Airship Ventures, whose profits then go to Google as an (apparent) owner, and to Google defender Dyson as another owner.
  
• Dyson's investment 23AndMe hired Airship Ventures, another Dyson investment.

There are also some softer, stranger relationships:

• Esther Wojcicki (left), mother-in-law to Google co-founder Sergey Brin and mother to 23AndMe founder Anne Wojcicki, has promoted both Airship Ventures and Google Docs in the Huffington Post. She once worked for Google as an educational consultant.
• NASA allows Airship Ventures to dock at Moffet Field, saying its craft will be used for scientific investigations. It also allows Google's founders to park their party jets there, citing similar reasons.

It's hard to doubt this back-scratching, built as it is on cashflow originating at Google, benefits the search giant's friends; the real question is whether it does any good for shareholders.

(Second blimp pic by John Murphy on Facebook, submitted as part of a 23AndMe Facebook contest. Esther Dyson pic by Steve Jurvetson.)

"There was some talk about meeting 'aggressive sales targets' to get through next year," this person added, inmplying the company will quickly burn through the $13 million 23AndMe just raised from Sergey Brin and the company he co-founded, Google. Brin is married to 23AndMe's co-founder, Anne Wojcicki (pictured); 23AndMe also just leased office space from Google.

23AndMe is also in the process of raising another $11 million from other investors to close out its second round of financing. The company had a total of 30 employees, according to CrunchBase, but it's not clear how up-to-date that number is.

23AndMe didn't respond to a call and email seeking comment; presumably the startup is busy trying to get more money in the door. Time for more spit parties.

According to an SEC filing, Google put an additional $2.6 million into 23andMe, following up a $3.9 million investment in 2007. And Google, which has been laying off workers, is renting space to Wojcicki's firm. On what terms? No one outside Google knows, except for one appraiser whose opinion is unclear. From the SEC filing:

In June 2009, Google also entered into a lease agreement with 23andMe... The terms and conditions of the lease with 23andMe were reviewed by an independent real estate appraiser.

It's not clear whether Wojcicki, who recently gave birth to son Benji, will work from the new digs, but the proximity to Brin — and to Google's free child care — would certainly help her keep child-rearing and a high-powered career in easier balance. Whether the deal is as good for Google shareholders remains unclear.

The big idea behind 23andMe and a passel of other gene startups was to make genetic testing affordable and encourage consumers to share their data online, with the notion that they'd then discover patterns linking common diseases. But finding links between diseases and genes has proven much harder than expected.

"With only a few exceptions, what the genomics companies are doing right now is recreational genomics," says David Goldstein, a Duke University geneticist who wrote a recent commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine about the problem. Well, 23andMe does call its test-tube events "spit parties."

In a way, this is a positive for 23andMe, which has come under increasing scrutiny by state regulators for providing an unlicensed medical service. Now Wojcicki can claim, with scientific rigor, that her "tests" are nothing more than a party game. It does raise one question, however: How did a recreational gene-tester with a failed career in biotech investing manage to get a seat on the board of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health?

A tipster tells us that "for security reasons," Brin and his wife, who's the cofounder of genetics-testing startup 23andMe, have given their son the official name of Benji Wojin (a combination of "Wojcicki" and "Brin").

And sure enough, someone has privately registered the domain name benjiwojin.com. Of course, the legendarily bizarre Brin, who posted pictures of himself in drag, got married in a Speedo, and had guests show up in diapers to a baby shower.

Papa Brin is already putting his son to work as a test subject for mom's business, according to the New York Times, which reports that he plans to have Benji tested for Parkinson's disease:

Mr. Brin and Ms. Wojcicki said they would check whether their son, who was born in November, also has the mutation, though he will not be able to donate his DNA in the usual way - putting saliva in small tubes, as 23andMe has promoted at celebrity-studded "spit parties."
"Babies can't spit into a tube," Mr. Brin said.

The disease is genetic, and runs in Brin's family. His mother, Eugenia, already has developed it, and Brin announced last September that he runs a high risk of developing it himself.

So Brin announced on his blog that he is funding a study that will subsidize the cost of having people with Parkinson's get their DNA tested through 23andMe; they will pay $25 instead of $399, with Brin's grant, one presumes, making up the difference.

This is at once a noble contribution to science — and an outrageous case of nepotism that raises questions of tax evasion.

23andMe is backed financially by Google, which became an investor as it repaid a personal loan Brin made to the company. (Anne Wojcicki's sister, Susan, is also an executive at Google — a position she got after she served as the company's first landlord.)

Previously, Brin had contributed money to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, a prominent charity backed by the actor, who also suffers from Parkinson's. The Fox Foundation then went on to fund a Parkinson's study at 23andMe.

23andMe officially announced the study today — and confirmed that Brin himself provided the funding:

The initiative is made possible through funding by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Mr. Brin's commitment comes from his personal interest in Parkinson's disease. Brin's mother has Parkinson's and he discovered through 23andMe that he has a genetic predisposition to the disease as well. He explained, "We can make significant progress in understanding Parkinson's disease if individuals join together and contribute their personal experiences to scientific research. Individually, our genes and experiences are lost in a sea of statistical noise. But, taken together they become a high power lens on our inner workings."

Mr. Brin's personal donation substantially underwrites the cost of genotyping the participants, who will pay only $25 compared with the usual commercial price of $399. Individuals who join through the PI and MJFF partnership will have the exact same data, information, tools, and access as individuals who have paid full price for the 23andMe Personal Genome Service.

Let's get this straight:

• Brin is making a charitable donation, presumably tax-free, to the Fox Foundation.
• The Fox Foundation is turning around and giving that money to 23andMe, a for-profit startup cofounded by Brin's wife and financially backed by Brin's company.
• 23andMe will get to count the tests paid for by the charity as revenues, thereby pumping up its financial results, directly benefitting Google and Wojcicki.

We can all applaud Brin's contributions to science. But did he really need to go through what looks like a money-laundering scheme to make them?

(Photo via Edge.org)

That's the outrageous statement that 23andMe cofounder Linda Avey made to Forbes in explaining the wonders of her genetic-testing startup, which she started with Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Brin, the Google gajillionaire. Here's what Avey said:

Sergey is going out and helping so many people. Michael J. Fox has done a lot with his foundation, but he did that after he was diagnosed. If you can find out early, you can do so much more.

Brin discovered through, yes, a genetic test that he is at risk of developing Parkinson's, as is the extremely wealthy child the pregnant Wojcicki is expected to bear at any moment. He's made significant donations to Parkinson's research — including a rather questionable one through the Michael J. Fox Foundation which was then directed to 23andMe.

What, exactly, does Avey think Fox should have done? Pursued a career in biotech instead of acting, so he might have developed a test for Parkinson's? And then what? Taken up smoking, a nasty habit which can nonetheless delay the onset of Parkinson's? Fox has raised millions of dollars for a Parkinson's cure — some of which went more or less directly into Avey's pocket. I'd like to know when 23andMe will detect a genetic propensity for ingratitude.

Why, with the Google founders' fleet of party planes, which are also parked at Moffett Field, with the excuse that they sometimes fly scientific missions. (In fact, the Google founders' jets proved impractical for Nasa's science needs; Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt bought a fighter jet to fly those missions instead.)

One of Airship Ventures' backers is an entity called Amphitheatre Holdings. Amphitheatre is incorporated in Delaware under the address of INV Tax Group, which Google may have purchased in a real-estate transaction two years ago. Google's headquarters is at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, Calif.

This hardly seems like coincidence. Dyson is an investor in 23andMe, the Google-backed startup of Anne Wojcicki, wife of founder Sergey Brin. Has Dyson taken Google's shareholders for a ride, by having them take a hidden stake in a blimp startup?

Brin should do what many in the health-obsessed Valley unilaterally shun: Take up smoking, as nicotine has been shown to have a prophylactic effect on the degeneration of dopamine-producing brain cells in mice.

But why would those folks want to convince yuppies with disposable income to spit into a tube and mail the spit to a research lab, where their complete genetic profile will be uploaded to the web to be shared with friends, loved ones, and curious sex partners? Isn't it obvious...?

Google exists for one purpose: to catalog all the information in the known universe, because information is power. Rupert Murdoch exists for one purpose: to disseminate all that information and make a fortune off it. But Rupert Murdoch can't live forever ... unless! Hear us out: 23andMe compiles a record of the most ideal chromosomes from the world's most remarkable genetic freaks (Usian Bolt's speed, Gary Kasparov's logical reasoning, Michael Phelps' giant flippers), melds them with Murdoch's base double-helix blueprint, and then installs the self-aware Rupert virus on a Google server farm. You know how this story ends:

Or maybe Harvey Weinstein just wants his pee to smell like asparagus. It could go either way.

When in Doubt, Spit It Out [NYT]
Ptooey! [NewYorker]
Related: Lots more on 23andMe @ Valleywag

But by figuring out the single-nucleotide polymorphisms which lead to chiseled features and a high-powered metabolism, Wojcicki might figure out how to make sure her next child with Google cofounder Sergey Brin is healthy, smart and ravishingly beautiful according to media norms. My suggestion? New York's models should be making 23andMe pay them for saliva samples. It's not like Wojcicki, whose startup is already backed by her husband's employer, can't dial for more dollars from Google's new venture investment arm whenever she feels like it.

He is an advisor to 23andMe, a Google-backed genetic-testing startup. Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe's cofounder, is married to Google cofounder Sergey Brin. Google has backed Church's Personal Genome Project, an effort to tie the human genome with personal health information, with an unrestricted grant. Church is an entrant in the Archon X Prize for Genomics, a $10 million genetics-research competition. Anne Wojcicki has donated money to the Archon X Prize at a Google-hosted gala. She and husband Brin, along with other Google executives, are also members of the X Prize's Vision Circle, a group of high-powered fundraising supporters. Oh, and just to complete things, 23andMe board member Esther Dyson is one of Church's test subjects.

Nothing really amiss here, but it all seems quite cozy. If Church's team wins the X Prize, Brin and Wojcicki can be quite content that their donations didn't end up too far from home. (Photo by Lloyd Ziff/Wired)

Brin has a personal foundation, funded with some of his Google fortune. One of the largest recipients of his largesse is the Michael J. Fox Foundation, an organization founded by the Canadian actor and dedicated to researching Parkinson's disease, from which Fox suffers.

In May, 23andMe announced that it was signing up Parkinson's patients for its genetic-testing services. The tests would be paid for by a $600,000 grant from the Fox foundation.

Wojcicki described the approach in a Huffington Post op-ed as "Research 2.0." To our ears, this sounds more like a good old-fashioned back-scratching arrangement.

Here are the questions people ought to be asking: Was Brin's donation really a donation, since some of it ended up going into his wife's pockets? And should the Fox grant count as revenues for 23andMe, since the money can be traced back to Brin, the cofounder of Google, an important investor in the startup? If IRS and SEC officials don't start looking into the deals, then they're not doing their jobs.

How can Brin make this right, if he really believes in his company's code of conduct and the "don't be evil" culture he helped foster at Google? Google should immediately sell its shares in 23andMe, at cost. 23andMe should return the Fox grant. And the Michael J. Fox foundation should return Brin's donation.

Brin, whose net worth was recently estimated at $18.5 billion, can easily afford to invest personally in his wife's startup. And there's no conflict in doing so; he'd merely be seen as a supportive, if indulgent, spouse. The problem comes when he starts using other people's money to fund Wojcicki's ventures. Google shareholders shouldn't be funding her experiments; neither should the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Nor should U.S. taxpayers be footing the bill. Especially considering that 23andMe's tests may not even be legal, according to the state of California.

Google's success has persuaded Brin that he doesn't need to listen to other people's advice, or follow their petty little rules; his gut instincts have made him fabulously wealthy, so why should he? He may not have crossed any legal lines in this latest episode of self-dealing — but it shows that he's on a path to do so. Sergey, stop now, before you really embarrass yourself.

Hi guys,

Are you or a graphic designer you know is looking for contract work? 23andMe is looking for contractors. (www.23andme.com)

The basic rundown:

We're looking for a super-talented individual or group that can design stuff that is clean, friendly, and smart. (no arbitrary swooshes!) If you're not working through me, then you'll be dealing with non-designers giving you project descriptions—so it helps if you're comfortable working with a fair amount of independence and can bring your own intellect to the table.

-Create stuff that can scale between print and web nicely.
-Ability to make sweet diagrams a plus (think Wired for level of science + accessible).
-Ability to make flash animations a plus
-Ability to edit video also great
-You will probably need to learn a little about our technology along the way. Poorly researched allusions to double-helices will not cut the proverbial mustard.
-Good communicator. We are busy and can be vague (I had this when I was a contractor) so you need to feel comfortable asking questions to get you the info you need.
-Work will target a wide audience from average Joes to researchers.
-Project by project basis, most likely the work will be in marketing materials and not tied to the actual website. So think items like booklets, logos, icons, posters.
-The items being created are small in scale but in content are very complex. you'll have to get a nuanced message across that is both sophisticated and accessible.
-Potential for full-time hire if interested.

Seeing as how 23andMe gave a free test to California resident Michael Arrington, that some doctors are skeptical of the medical value of such tests, and that the company freely admits that the tests are for novelty purposes only, I'm guessing the consumer complaints over accuracy and cost that prompted the investigation aren't wholly without merit. Twelve other companies, including San Francisco's Navigenics, are also being investigated. (Photo by Sergio Calleja)