*By: Madison Alworth*
Jill Steinberg credits 23andMe with saving her life.
The mom of two decided eight years ago to take the ancestry and health tests for fun with her husband, Cheddar CEO Jon Steinberg. As a result, she found out she carried the BRCA 1 gene mutation.
That means she had a much higher chance of developing breast cancer. In fact, 80% of those with the mutation are eventually diagnosed with the disease.
After receiving the news from 23andMe and consulting with her doctors, Steinberg decided to get a double mastectomy.
"It was life-changing news to find out," she said in an interview Friday. "But it was something that I could take, consult my doctors, and do something about. So I feel that I was able to save my own life, take my life into my own hands, and survive cancer before I got cancer."
Anne Wojcicki, CEO and founder of 23andMe, is happy to provide this kind of information to the public. She says she tells employees, "We really change lives. And it might be about ancestry, and it might be you found out something meaningful, but there's always something there to learn."
Investigators recently used genetic information to make an arrest in a decades-old case. A suspect was taken into custody this week in the Golden State Killer case. An [open-source DNA](https://www.wired.com/story/detectives-cracked-the-golden-state-killer-case-using-genetics/) database was used to finally draw a connection between the suspect and the crimes.
Instances like that have some people ー even those not trying to conceal crimes ー worried that genetic and other records stored online could eventually get into the wrong hands. But Wojcicki said that keeping 23andMe customers' information private and secure is a top priority.
"We do everything we can to protect our customers," explains Wojcicki. "We have no business if I can't protect the privacy of our customers."
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/how-23andme-is-saving-lives).
Nestlé has dismissed its CEO Laurent Freixe after an investigation into an undisclosed relationship with a direct subordinate. The company announced on Monday that the dismissal was effective immediately. An investigation found that Freixe violated Nestlé’s code of conduct. He had been CEO for a year. Philipp Navratil, a longtime Nestlé executive, will replace him. Chairman Paul Bulcke stated that the decision was necessary to uphold the company’s values and governance. Navratil began his career with Nestlé in 2001 and has held various roles, including CEO of Nestlé's Nespresso division since 2024.
Kraft Heinz is splitting into two companies a decade after they joined in a massive merger that created one of the biggest food companies on the planet. One of the companies will include brands such as Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese and Kraft Mac & Cheese. The other will include brands like Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables. When the company formed in 2015 it wanted to capitalize on its massive scale, but shifting tastes complicated those plans, with households seeking to introduce healthier options at the table. Kraft Heinz's net revenue has fallen every year since 2020.
About 780,000 pressure washers sold at retailers like Home Depot are being recalled across the U.S. and Canada, due to a projectile hazard that has resulted in fractures and other injuries among some consumers.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
