A Colorful Journey
A few years ago, I made one of my first #Angels investments in Color Genomics, a company that offers affordable genetic testing to help people understand their risk for developing common hereditary cancers. Color was founded by two of my all-time favorite entrepreneurs, Elad Gil and Othman Laraki, who have incredible backgrounds in biology and engineering. When I left Twitter earlier this year, the Color founders (also including Nish Bhat and Taylor Sittler) asked me to help on a few projects, including a new initiative to provide free genetic testing to at least 100,000 women and men from underrepresented populations and communities.
I’ve always been drawn to mission driven technologies that democratize access to information so I jumped at the opportunity. Color’s mission of democratizing access to genetic testing takes this principle one important step further: it can save people’s lives. One out of three people will hear these painful words in their lifetime: “You have cancer”. One of seven men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer and one out of eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Both of my grandfathers died of cancer and over the past year, I’ve seen my father, uncle and close friends fight cancer. Cancer touches all of us.
Color’s mission is important and purposeful. The company is at the forefront of an important movement of precision medicine and improved health care. The team is filled with brilliant, mission-driven scientists, doctors, engineers, product managers and designers with a clear sense of purpose. And the more time I spent with the team, the more captivated I became. I quickly realized I didn’t want to sit on the sidelines anymore. I wanted to join something bigger than myself and importantly, make my kids and family proud. As such, I’m thrilled to announce that starting in mid-August, I will join the Color team full-time as the Chief Marketing Officer. I’m honored to be part of this team and believe that this product will have a positive impact on the world. I can’t wait to get started and look forward to this colorful journey ahead.
PS: Color is hiring!
