Ann Wojcicki (7:51)

I might have an increased risk of heart disease, arthritis, gallstones, hemochromatosis. I'll look into that stuff.

David Brown (7:58)

We might pass on to our kids foods. I might want to avoid hundreds of.

Ann Wojcicki (8:02)

Things about my health, getting my 23andMe results. It really opened my eyes.

David Brown (8:07)

The more you know about your DNA, the more you know about yourself. And 23andMe's big push for sales is about to get an unexpected helping hand from a Hollywood action movie star.

Ann Wojcicki (8:20)

She's battled CIA assassins and evil scientists as a movie star. But Hollywood, a lister and global activist Angelina Jolie is now waging a real life war against a disease that threatens to cut short the lives of millions of Women.

David Brown (8:34)

In May 2013, actress Angelina Jolie announces she's had a double mastectomy. She made the choice after DNA testing revealed she has a mutation in her genes that greatly increases her chances of developing breast cancer. And now she's encouraging other women to get themselves tested. And that increases interest in 23andMe's tests. It looks like sales are primed to take off. It's got major celebrity endorsements, a new low price of $99, and a clear use case for its tests making headlines. But 23andMe's fresh momentum is about to slam right into a wall. It's November 2013, and the axe has finally fallen. The FDA has been investigating the home DNA test market. That falls under the FDA's responsibility to regulate products that could affect public health. Now, after years of investigation, it's reached a conclusion. And it's bad for 23andMe. It orders 23andMe to stop marketing its $99 tests. This is due to the inaccurate results these tests sometimes return that might cause consumers to undergo unnecessary medical procedures. 23andMe can't say it wasn't warned. The FDA had told the company this might happen, but the company failed to engage with the regulator to get approval for selling health tests. Now that lack of engagement will cost 23andMe dearly. The FDA's order to cease marketing arrives just as the company's sales move into high gear thanks to the price cut and the Angelina Jolie effect. Now the company's unable to cash in. 23andMe thought it could work around the rules. But now that that plan has backfired, its popular health tests are off the shelves, and it can only offer ancestry tests. And now it'll have to work with the FDA to start offering health tests again by going through the approval process it spent years not engaging with. And that could take months, even years. Look, there's a lesson here. Silicon Valley's favorite motto might be move fast and break things, but when the thing you're breaking is FDA protocol, that's not disruption. That's just a lawsuit waiting to announce itself. You know, there's a tradition in tech of asking forgiveness rather than permission. But while that might work for software, healthcare and health data is not the place to play that game. Remember, when regulators start knocking, it's not a nuisance, it's a sign. Your business model might be skating on thin legal ice. In healthcare, skipping steps risks not just a fine or a telling off, but getting shut down. Entrepreneurs learn the rules early or risk building a business on borrowed time. While dealing with the FDA shutdown, 23andMe launches its tests in the UK laws are more relaxed over there. Even so, there's no ducking the fact that this is a major setback. To make matters worse, Ancestry.com is moving into the DNA test business. Ancestry is building on its huge customer base of people interested in tracing their family histories. It already has more than 2 million subscribers to its website in the US alone. Selling DNA tests to those customers seems like a natural move for the company. And Ancestry's backing its entry into DNA testing with plenty of TV advertising. Growing up, we were German. We danced in a German dance group. We I wore lederhosen. I decided to have my DNA tested through Ancestry DNA. The big surprise was we're not German at all. It's going to be awkward explaining all that time wearing lederhosen now, but maybe not as awkward as 23andMe trying to explain to its investors why the business just got hobbled by the FDA and is now losing market share to Ancestry. And it's going to be a long road back to business as usual. Need to hire fast, but dreading the process? Here's a better way Indeed when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Tired of your job post getting lost in the shuffle on other sites? Well, Indeed's sponsor Jobs helps you stand out and hire fast. Your post jumps to the top of the page for relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. And you know what? That makes a huge difference. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored Jobs. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of Business wars will get a $75 sponsor job credit. To make sure you get your jobs more visibility@indoubtedly.com BW just go to indeed.com BW right now and support Business wars by saying you heard about Indeed right here Indeed.com BW terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need.

Ann Wojcicki (14:05)

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a.

David Brown (14:15)

Thing Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium wireless everybody.

Ann Wojcicki (14:18)

Get 30, 30 better get 30 better.

David Brown (14:19)

Get 202020 better get 2020 everybody get 15151515 just 15 bucks a month.

Ann Wojcicki (14:24)

So give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to 15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network's busy taxes and fees extra see Mintmo co founder of 23andMe and congratulations after.

David Brown (14:49)

A four year negotiation in April 2017 and after four years of negotiations, 23andMe finally gets FDA approval to start marketing its health tests in the US again following a very limited return to the market in 2015. But there's a catch. The range of disease risks it can test for is now much smaller and the cost of those tests is now $199, up from that sweet spot of just $99. Yet despite that price increase, 23andMe is still losing money. It gets worse. While the company was benched by the FDA, 23andMe's competitors have gained ground. Ancestry's already sold 5 million DNA tests. 23andMe has sold just 2 million. This is the true cost of trying to get around the FDA. For all those years, 23andMe had a first mover advantage, which could be priceless in a new field. And yet it squandered it. CEO Ann Wuccitzki isn't deterred, though she's got her eyes on a bigger prize than helping people with their family trees, specifically licensing 23andMe's DNA database to pharmaceutical and medical researchers. She's also about to fight back with support from some very high profile helpers starting in Christmas 2017 with a certain Oprah Winfrey.

Ann Wojcicki (16:18)

All right. Hard to believe it's already that time of year again. Time for Oprah's favorite things.

David Brown (16:24)

That's right. And if you're looking to learn about your ancestry, you can try Mountain view based Twin 23andMe's DNA test. Oprah calls 23andMe the ultimate selfie. And it's on her big annual list of her favorite things. Right there in between a lunchbox that helps with portion control and a hammock. And an Oprah endorsement guarantees a major sales spike. 23andMe is also getting traction with its plan to sell anonymized DNA data. In 2018, it strikes an exclusive $300 million deal with GlaxoSmithKline. The deal will let the British pharmaceutical giant use 23andMe's growing pool of DNA results for drug research. The medical world sees big potential in drugs that target specific genes. But developing these treatments requires data, the kind of data that 23andMe is collecting. But it's not all roses. Despite FDA approval, 23andMe is now getting criticism due to the limitations of its disease testing. As an opinion piece in the New York Times points out, FDA approved is not the same as clinically useful. Remember how interest in 23andMe's test increased after Angelina Jolie revealed she'd had a double mastectomy? She'd taken a DNA test that revealed she had a mutation in one of her genes that increased her risk of breast cancer. 23andMe tests these genes for mutations. The test focuses on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes where cancer linked mutations can occur. But there are thousands of these mutations. Technological limitations mean 23andMe can only test for three of them. The three mutations it tests for are mostly those prevalent among people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. And that's a tiny sliver of the US population. Just 2%. Because 23andMe's tests don't look for the other mutations. They miss a huge amount of people whose BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes carry a mutation. And it's not just missing them. People are getting false reassurance from their 23andMe results. But to know that breast cancer gene tests aren't all clear requires people to engage with complex topics to like gene mutations and medical statistics. And with attention focused on Lizzo dressing up as a DNA test for Halloween, well, few customers notice the debate about the shortcomings of 23andMe tests. There's worry around 23andMe's business model too. Specifically concern about a fatal flaw that's been baked into its business plan from day one. Problem is, your DNA doesn't change. It's fixed for life. So once you get a 23andMe test, there's no reason to buy another test. It's a once in a lifetime purchase. Now look, one time buys are rarely great business. It's why some companies build in planned obsolescence. Like smartphones that seem to get slower with age. Or washing machines that are designed so that they're more expensive to repair than to buy new. After all, if one washing machine could see us through our entire lives, there wouldn't be much of a business in making them. 23andMe sell to DNA tests at a loss. And to consumers who most likely won't buy one again, ever, because their DNA doesn't change. You get the problem right? Wojcicki is smart and creative and fearsomely well connected. But 23andMe is selling snowballs in a freezer. Once you buy one, why would you ever buy another? That's not a customer pipeline, that's a puddle. In reality, the only thing that seems to be keeping the 23andMe show on the road is its investors. This is the Silicon Valley community that Wojcicki seems to have been born to tap into. She may be a hit with Google and their ilk, but it's getting harder to ignore the fact that 23andMe doesn't really have an answer to that fundamental problem. A one shot novelty problem product. Where's the growth in that? This means two things. One, those investors need to exit soon or risk losing everything they put in. And 2,23andMe needs a new business plan. One that can replace the broken business model it's been relying on until now. It's time to pivot. And hard. By early 2021, aided by a near endless wave of publicity. 23andMe's DNA tests are selling well. The company's gone from around 2 million customers in 2017 to more than 12 million. But it's still losing money. There are also concerns that the market for these tests might be nearing the point of saturation. With its DNA tests burning cash and the plan to license its DNA database failing to deliver. Big bucks. Wucci changes direction 23andMe will now become a pharmaceutical company that'll create drugs based on the DNA data it's collected. The potential seems huge. The pharmaceutical industry is gigantic. In 2021, it's worth $1.2 trillion. But it's also built upon the bones of so many companies that didn't make it. Developing new drugs is tough. So tough that only around 13% of all global drug development programs end in approval. Competition is fierce. Promising drugs can fail in late testing after a decade of work. On average, it takes 10 to 15 years to bring a drug to market. And that process costs billions of dollars, not millions. There's a reason the main players in pharmaceuticals are so big and entrenched. It's one thing to shift your strategy. But for pharmaceuticals, an industry where the success rates are microscopic, it's not just bold, it's death or glory. Startups considering this kind of leap need to ask do we have the cash? Do we have the patience? And do we have the expertise to survive the valley of death between promise and payoff? If not, stay in your lane or bring along a partner who knows the road ahead. Still, Rucci's looking low on options right now. 23andMe's main asset is its bank of DNA data. And exploiting that to the max feels like the only way the company can make good on its promises to investors. But to even have a chance of making this work, 23andMe needs access to billions of dollars of capital. There's only one place to go to get that kind of money. The stock market. In June 2021, 23andMe joins the NASDAQ. And it gets there using a special purpose acquisition company, SPAC for short. What's a SPAC? Well, SPACs are a route to taking a company public that doesn't involve an initial public offering or an ipo. With an ipo, you sell shares in your business directly to the public. SPACs offer an alternative route onto stock exchanges. They're shell companies that have already gone through the IPO process. These shell businesses don't make any products or offer services of their own. They just exist on paper. And they wait until a private company like 23andMe comes along to buy it in order to go public. SPACs are a faster and usually cheaper route to get listed on the stock market than an ipo, and they also involve less transparency and scrutiny. There are fewer disclosure requirements with the spac, so you're really trading on your reputation. And that's a wave that 23andMe's surfed like a pro since it first launched. 23andMe enters the NASDAQ valued at $3.3.5 billion, including debt. Hucky admits she's been concerned about going public, but she feels that the COVID pandemic has increased interest in genetics. So the moment makes Sense. On day one, 23andMe stock rises 21%. At its peak, the stock market will eventually value 23andMe at $6 billion. But there's a catch. Public markets are far less forgiving than private capital. Once you're listed, you're answering two analysts, not just true believers. With skin in the game, momentum won't carry you. Only your financial metrics will. Lizzo and Oprah. They won't get you across any finish lines in this world. Armed with cash raised from going public, Wucci looks for ways to shore up the company's financials, which will be exposed to all in quarterly reports. In October 2021, 23andMe buys telemedicine firm Lemonade. That's aid, as in band aid. Yeah, I know. I probably wouldn't go with that name either. Lemonade offers online doctor's appointments and prescription drug deliveries. It's an established player. It's the kind of business that can assure analysts that 23andMe's got cash coming in, not just going out, while it tries to make its drug discovery pivot pay off. A month later, in November 2021, 23andMe announces the creation of an internal drug development operation staffed by 100 scientists. The company reveals it's collaborating on clinical trials for one drug while nearing trials for or another. And the first drug in development might be used in the field of immuno oncology, using the body's immune system to fight cancer. 23andMe is also looking into drugs for treating neurological and cardiovascular conditions. But it stops short of giving any more details away. Sounds promising, but too vague for anyone to be sure if it'll pan out. And that's an issue, because the initial high of going public is already starting to fade.

Ann Wojcicki (26:58)

Every big moment starts with a big dream. But what happens when that big dream turns out to be a big flop? From wondery and Illmedia. I'm Misha Brown and this is the Big Flop. Every week, comedians join me to chronicle the biggest flubs, fails and blunders of all time.

David Brown (27:20)

Like Quibi.

Ann Wojcicki (27:21)

It's kind of like when you give yourself your own nickname and you try to like, get other people to do it. And the 2019 movie adaptation of Cats. Like if I'm watching the dancing and.

David Brown (27:30)

I'm noticing the feet aren't touching the.

Ann Wojcicki (27:31)

Ground, there's something wrong with the movie. Find out what happens when massive hype turns into major fiasco. Enjoy the Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to the Big Flop early and ad free on Wondery Plus. Get started with your free trial at wondery.complus. this is Nick and this is Jack. We're best friends, ex finance guys and resident 90s expert. And every week on our podcast, the Best Idea yet, we're bringing you the untold stories behind your financial favorite products. For instance, can you guess which billion dollar fashion company went viral thanks to a rhinestone covered tracksuit? Or which cartoon turned four turtles into a global toy empire by accident? It started as a joke. Last one which cold beverage was so hated by Starbucks they actually ended up acquiring it? Spoiler. The Frappuccino. Howard Schultz apparently thought cold coffee was.

David Brown (28:27)

Super lame and then he bought it.

Ann Wojcicki (28:29)

From Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Juicy Couture to the Orange Mocha Frappuccino, join us every week to learn how your favorite things got made. Follow the Best idea yet on the Wonder App or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondering Plus. And if this podcast lasts longer than 45 minutes, call your doctor.

David Brown (29:07)

It's November 8, 2023, and 23andMe's investors are listening in to an earnings call. It's been two years since 23andMe set up its drug discovery unit, and it's been tough sledding. The task of developing pharmaceuticals is proving costly and slow, so the business still depends on its consumer facing business for income. But its DNA tests are still money losers, and that's making investors nervous. So today, Wu Chicki is framing the company's latest quarterly results in the best possible light. And she needs to 23andMe's stock price has nosedived from $300 to $15 in the past two years.

Ann Wojcicki (29:50)

We're continuing our work on product margins. We signed a new $20 million data licensing deal with GlaxoSmithKline. We've launched a new Total Health membership for consumers. It's a subscription service that offers our customers biannual blood marker testing, plus access to clinicians and training in genetics.

David Brown (30:11)

Wojcicki believes Total Health is a way to solve 23andMe's fatal flaw by turning people who buy 23andMe kits into recurring customers. But when the earnings call opens to questions, analysts and investors are skeptical. And what I'm hearing here are moves to attract additional consumer revenue. But where's the research revenue growth? Consumer revenue still 97% of revenue? That's a question that many 23andMe stockholders are asking. Wuccitzki told them the big money is in research. But the portion of 23andMe's income that comes from research is shrinking, not growing. Meanwhile, 23andMe's reporting net losses this quarter of $75 million. That's up 9 million on the same time last year. Put another way, the company's moving further away from profit, not closer. And this decline is about to accelerate. As November 2023 continues, 23andMe's stock price gets brutalized. By the end of the month, it's in the trash. The company's minimum bid price, the lowest price you could buy some 23andMe stock for dips below a single dollar, and that triggers something that no listed company wants. A public letter from the NASDAQ warning 23andMe that if it does not get its minimum bid price above a dollar soon, it will be banished from the stock market. Wucci now needs to go all out to regain investor confidence and avoid 23andMe getting delisted. But before she can respond, 23andMe gets a devastating sucker punch. In December 2023, 23andMe announces it's been hacked. The culprit is a lone hacker who calls themselves Golem. The hacker used compromised passwords to steal the DNA test results of 6.9 million 23andMe customers from a total customer base of more than 14 million. Most of the people who had their data swiped were people of Chinese or Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Soon that information is being sold on the dark Web. This major Data breach crushes 23andMe's brand reputation just as the company desperately tries to stop being kicked off the Nasdaq. Lots of companies get hacked and have sensitive information revealed or sold. It's never good news. But for a company built on sensitive personal data, the breach isn't just bad, it's brand ending. Customers have given 23andMe their most personal asset, their Literal genetic code. Code that reveals all kinds of information and secrets, along with millennia of family history. And when that gets out, it isn't just a cybersecurity failure. Many see it as a betrayal. If you're a business owner handling user data, take note. Your systems have to be airtight, your security obsessive, your response plans well rehearsed. Because once trust cracks, it's nearly impossible to reseal. Wucci built her company on the coiled brilliance that lives inside every human cell. But now her DNA dream is unraveling fast. As spring 2024 begins, 23andMe is in crisis. It's losing millions and battling to stay on the stock market. Its push into drug development is years away from delivering results. And its data breach has scorched its brand reputation. At its lowest point, 23andMe's stock price sinks so low that the company's market value is worth less than the cash it has in the bank. In effect, the company itself is worth less than zero. It couldn't get worse, could it? The company's also being sued for the data breach and will have to cough up $30 million to settle it. And in a misjudged PR move, Wu Chicki is blaming 23andMe customers for the hack because their passwords got compromised. It's not a good look at the best of times, let alone when your company's pivoted from poster child of the DNA revolution to a raging dumpster fire. As 2024 grinds on, 23andMe's bank balance runs dry in August, Wuyitski is forced to shut its drug discovery unit. The unit's closure ends her hopes of drug discovery riches. Now it's back to telehealth gene tests and licensing DNA data. But with its miserable valuation and its broken public trust, few investors see that as a viable solution. This is as close to the financial equivalent of total organ failure as most companies ever get. But Wucci is always thinking, always making plans. Back when 23andMe was thriving, she still found the time to open a kid friendly cafe and a video game arcade. After all, along the path of her journey, she's pivoted from consumer tests to medical research, licensing and drug development. The promise of all that led to a stock market valuation of $6 billion. And now she plans to save 23andMe again, this time by taking it off the stock market. It's September 2024, and in San Francisco, Wucci is meeting with 23andMe's board of directors. She wants to take the company private again. But she can't do that without the board's agreement, so she needs to win them over.

Ann Wojcicki (36:18)

I won't pretend that it hasn't been harder than we expected, but I don't think that we've executed yet on what the vision actually is here. Going private will get us back on track by letting us refocus on the big picture, not the next set of quarterly results.

David Brown (36:34)

The board's seven independent members look unimpressed. They've heard this too often in recent months. Patrick Chung is a longtime board member. He's always admired the way Wu Chicki sticks to her goals despite the obstacles. But even he has reached his limit. We hear what you're saying, Anne, but I don't believe what you're proposing is the answer.

Ann Wojcicki (36:57)

You know, the thing I found with people who are dismissive is you just have to prove them wrong.

David Brown (37:03)

But you're not proving it. After months of work, you've yet to give us a fully financed, fully diligence, accurate, questionable proposal. Look, we're out of time.

Ann Wojcicki (37:14)

I need to remind the board that I still hold 49 of the voting stock in this company.

David Brown (37:19)

There's a moment's pause. The independent board members anticipated this, and they've already decided on how to handle it. Chang looks at Wu Chicki. Well, in that case, I have to tell you, while we continue to support your mission, we're just too far apart on how to move forward. Wu Chicki is stunned. She can't believe she's hearing this. Chung continues, because of that difference in opinion and because of your concentrated voting power, I'm sorry to say that we believe that it's in the best interests of 23andMe stockholders that we all resign from the board. A mass resignation from the board. For Wucci, it's a hammer blow. In a year that has been nothing but hammer blows. Her sister Susan died a month ago from lung cancer. Her company is facing a humiliating delisting from the nasdaq. Now the board has walked. Her dream is dissolving before her eyes. The days of being an iconic Bay Area CEO who got turned into a Barbie doll are over. 23andMe is hurtling towards bankruptcy. By the time 2025 rolls around, Wu Chicki has laid off 40% of 23andMe's employees. It's a bid to stem the bleeding, but it's way too late. Bay Area based company 23andMe, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Now there are questions about what happens to all that personal information the company has collected over the years it's March 2025, and 23andMe is just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. As the news breaks, California's state authorities publicly advise people to delete their data from 23andMe. It's now likely that their DNA data will be sold to whoever offers the most money. It's hard not to think of the parallels. When 23andMe launched back in 2006, the health market had just seen the collapse of an entire industry. This one was built around offering cheap body scans to people who wanted to know more about their insights. For around $1,000 a scan, customers could bypass doctors and go directly to storefront imaging centers to check for tumors or polyps. This was a great idea right up until suddenly it wasn't. By 2005, the body scan industry was gone, sunk by a handful of problems that should have been clear from the start. Insurers wouldn't pay for scans without prior diagnosis, while customers wouldn't pay out of pocket for frequent scans. And that's pretty much the whole ball game right there. On top of that, the false positive rate was alarmingly high. Anxious customers often raced back to their doctors with what they thought were frightening results, only to be told there was nothing wrong. Any of that sound familiar? But while 23andMe crashed and burned, there's an early front runner in the race to buy 23andMe and it's data an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley fixture name Ann Wuccitzki. Yep, you did not miss here. Straight after the bankruptcy filing, Wujitsky, quote, quit as CEO so she could bid to buy her former company's assets and revive her DNA plan again. I know what you're thinking here, but it's worth remembering something. Founders and CEOs often have an almost spiritual connection to their vision. It's what drives innovation in the best cases. But it can also cloud judgment. Ann Wucci has believed in 23andMe to the bitter end. But belief alone won't balance the books. Entrepreneurs ask yourself, are you listening to the market, or are you doubling down because you're too close to what you've worked so hard to build? Remember the ancient proverb that's been guiding people for millennia and will never go out of style? Sometimes you have to let go or you'll get dragged. The future of 23andMe remains very much in question. In May 2025, drug maker Regeneron Pharmaceuticals offered $256 million for the business. It looked like Wu Chicki's plan to hold on to 23andMe and its data had failed. But two weeks later, Wu Chicki struck back, offering almost 50 million more than Regeneron. As we record, the outcome is unknown. We don't know if Regeneron will bid more or bow out. But either way, it looks like 23andMe will continue in some form. But the grand ambitions it was founded upon seem unlikely to return. 23andMe wanted to give ordinary people the power to understand the stories written in their genes and to use the same data to transform medicine. It had the dream, the investment, the goodwill, and a whole bucket load of hype behind it. But none of that matters if the fundamentals don't work. 23andMe built a great brand, but it was never able to overcome the fatal flaw in its business. Most people only need their genes explored once. Genetics is complex. While a lot of the interest in genetics is fairly casual in nature, and making drugs out of even the best data is is not an easy or cheap thing to do. 23andMe's 20 year journey of spending for no profit is a warning. A warning that if the fundamentals of your business aren't there at the start, you're in trouble. Hoping you'll find a way to fix it later down the line is a high risk plan, if it even counts as a plan at all. From Wondery. This is episode two of 23 and me's fatal flaw for business Wars. A quick note about the recreations you've been hearing. In most cases, we can't know exactly what was said at the time. These scenes are dramatizations, but they're based on research. I'm your host, David Brown. Christian Donlon of Yellow Ant wrote this story. Research by Marina Watts. Sound design by Josh Morales. Kyle Randall is our lead sound designer. Fact checking by Gabrielle Drollet. Voice acting by Chloe Elmore. Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Our producer is Kate Young. Our senior managing producer is Callum Plews. Produced by Tristan Donovan of Yellow Ant. Our senior producers are Emily Frost and Dave Schilling. Karen Lowe is our producer Americus. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marshall Louie for Wondery.

Ann Wojcicki (44:24)

Hey, I'm Cassidy Depechel, the host of Wondery's podcast, Against the Odds. In each episode we share thrilling true stories of survival, putting you in the shoes of the people who live to tell the tale in our next season. It's August 3, 1991. A Greek cruise ship, the Oceanos, sets sail into a brutal storm off South Africa's Wild Coast. Soon after, disaster strikes. A breach in the hull knocks out power and floods the ship. But instead of helping the senior officers abandon their posts with no leadership, the entertainers must step up and lead a desperate evacuation to save hundreds of lives before the ship sinks beneath the sea. Follow against the odds on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge the entire season ad free right now only on Wondery. Start your free trial in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify today.