Latest news with #PhoebeGates
News.com.au
6 days ago
- Business
- News.com.au
Bill Gates' daughter Phoebe reveals worst design disasters
Bill Gates' daughter, Phoebe Gates, is busy making a name for herself in the fashion world with the launch of a new start-up. Despite becoming an expert in the field, the billionaire's youngest child confessed she has experienced a fair few design disasters. The 22-year-old entrepreneur has come a long way since she made the decision to paint her childhood bedroom a 'horrific' purple colour — but she concedes that finding her ideal interior aesthetic has been a long journey, one that has seen her making a number of major mistakes. Now Gates, who was raised at her father's famous Xanadu 2.0 compound in Medina, Washington State, and her former college roommate turned business partner, Sophia Kianni, are lifting the lid on all of their worst interior decor errors in a bid to help others avoid the same mistakes along the way. The duo, who met while studying at Stanford University, had their first shared design experience inside their dorm room — which, as it turns out, also served as the launch pad for their new company, Phia, a shopping tool that compares prices of new and used items across thousands of websites. But while the Phia founders shared the same vision for their business, they revealed to Realtor that their decor preferences for the dorm room where they first developed the app were decidedly different — differences that led to a rather over-the-top aesthetic inside the space. 'In college, both of us had really funny taste,' says Gates. 'And so it was like Sophia's side and Phoebe's side, and you could totally tell whose was who. But, very colourful overall.' One way the pair successfully merged their styles inside their dorm was by displaying items to inspire their start-up journey. 'The nice thing we did is, if we saw something interesting in class, we would tape it to the fridge for each other to see — like a cool article we read, something we were excited about, or a good user interview we'd had for Phia,' Gates shares. 'And so that was the space in the room — the little tiny kitchenette thing, because we had a little fridge and a sink — that was where the design congregated together.' Using tape to post things on the refrigerator is just the type of non-permanent transformation that's generally allowed in temporary housing, such as dorms and rentals properties. Still, the Command Brand partners got themselves into a bit of a sticky situation with school authorities. 'We got in trouble for not doing damage-free design when we were first in college, for not using Command and then trying to pull things off afterwards and ruining the wall,' admits Gates. 'We taped up posters or something and then when you take the tape off, it, like, rips off the paint,' explains Kianni, who co-hosts 'The Burnouts' podcast alongside Gates. It seems both young activists prefer a more muted personal environment these days, perhaps because they each went overboard with colour in their childhood rooms. 'Oh my gosh, my first childhood room was completely purple,' Gates says of her childhood home in Seattle. 'Like, purple everywhere. It was horrific. I mean, there wasn't a space that wasn't purple. If there was a crack in it, it had to be made purple. Or pink, to be honest.' 'It's so funny because I also, when I was younger, I had two different types of rooms,' shares Kianni about her childhood space inside her family's McLean, Virginia, home. 'I had a blue and pink room, and then the other one [was] blue and green because I thought I had grown past pink, but not past coloured walls. 'I also hung a ton of different posters and stuff like that on my walls. I had too many. 'It wasn't even people, it was, like, posters of birds. I had the 'Birds of North America' book. I was just obsessed with birds. 'So, yeah, my childhood bedroom was super chaotic. I had, like, a furry beanbag. I had a cheetah blanket. I had a lot going on.' Looking back on the evolution of their personal aesthetics is just one of the ways that the close friends are helping younger people to find their own style early on — with the duo now detailing their best damage-free, budget-friendly, and Gen Z-approved dorm design tips in a new podcast collaboration with Command entitled, 'Sticking With Style.' 'I have a lot of friends who do a lot of accessorising with lights,' says Kianni. 'I feel like that's such an easy way to make a space look a lot more elevated, and it's extremely cheap.' And it's not the basic colour-changing LED strip light trend that exploded thanks to its popularity on TikTok in recent years that Kianni is referring to. 'Like, obviously there's the LED lights and stuff like that, but one of my friends — and I high-key need to copy her because it looks so good — has this lamp in her room where it puts a sunset circle on the wall,' shares Kianni. 'It's like a TikTok trend, too. I've seen people post it. It looks so beautiful. 'I literally think she got it for, like, $20 or something, but her room basically now looks like it has a big, beautiful, orange halo on it.' For the moment, that subtle orange glow put out by the light Kianni describes is currently 'in,' yet Gates declares that its close colour counterpart — the so-called 'Gen Z yellow' — has had its day in the sun. 'I think Gen Z yellow used to be such a big thing that, like, every brand was doing that Gen Z yellow colour,' she says. 'I feel like that's kind of fallen out of the fold now.' Kianni adds that 'the neons' and 'really bright colours' recently adored by her generation also need to be sunsetted. Gates and Kianni's previously colourful interior design scheme has evolved with each move: from their childhood homes to their college dorm and, now, to their own individual New York apartments. 'I feel like I'm a lot more minimalist now,' says Gates. 'I really like a really nice black-and-white photo over the bed. If I can get fun marble nightstands, I love that. 'A really cozy white bed — I'm a lot more minimalist than I used to be before.' 'Honestly, completely the same,' agrees Kianni. 'I used to be complete colour-vomiting, like, colour, colour everywhere, and now I definitely gravitate more towards neutrals and basics. Most of the things in my apartment are white or brown or black.' Yet the former roommates haven't completely turned their backs on their original room aesthetics. Unlike the wall-damaging posters from their dorm days, there are a few design details in their homes and at their headquarters that they're happy to keep around. 'I still love a pop of colour,' says Kianni. 'But now it's like I have an accent of red; it's not on the walls — it's on the pillows.' 'I must have one, like, really cozy blanket,' adds Gates. 'I'm not talking about an expensive comforter, but just a slough of really comfy blankets so I can create something, sit on my bed, get some work done, answer some emails at the end of the day — so I think that stuck, but hopefully not the massacre of the colour purple all around. Although, Command could help me to hang some really nice purple frames. We might need to bring that into the office.'
Daily Mail
15-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Bill Gates' daughter Phoebe, 22, lands a new side hustle... after her billionaire dad said he would not give her money
Bill Gates 's youngest daughter Phoebe has landed a new job. The fashion show regular is working with Sophia Kianni and Tay Nakamoto for a new podcast episode, Sticking With Style. They are offering tips on upgrading dorm room space for the fall 2025 semester. The project is part of an endorsement deal with the brand Command, which proves Phoebe is moving more into the world of an influencer. The 22-year-old studied Human Biology at California 's Stanford University. She is the daughter to the Microsoft co-founder, 69, and his philanthropist ex wife Melinda Gates, 60. Phoebe and her siblings, Jennifer, 28, and Rory, 25, will famously receive a minute percentage of their father's fortune because Bill will instead divert his mammoth fortune to charitable organizations. In April she discussed her father's extraordinary success and the pressure that brings on her new podcast, The Burnouts, alongside her business partner and close friend, Sophia. She said: 'I had so much insecurity and such a desire to prove myself at Stanford. 'I came in, I was like, ''I'm so privileged, I'm a nepo baby'', like I had so much insecurity around that. I feel it's so hard when you're a freshman in college because you have no experience. You have nothing.' Despite her billionaire father's gravitas, the graduate, who is dating Sir Paul McCartney 's grandson, Arthur Donald, said she was 'flat-out rejected' from a business class after devising her first pitch, Bluetooth tampons, giving women health status updates throughout their periods. 'This was our first big failure of many, many, many,' Phoebe admitted. 'I don't think it's really a shocker that we got flat-out rejected from this class - they asked us, ''What problem does this solve? How would it make money?'' We couldn't answer those questions.' It wasn't just her Stanford professors who doubted Phoebe's entrepreneurial skills, but Bill also blocked his daughter's request to drop out of school to pursue her debut company despite him doing something similar 49 years earlier. Phoebe, who will soon launch her company, digital fashion platform Phia, which she describes as a 'new way to shop' online, with Kianni, said: 'I remember even when we wanted to start the company, him being like, ''Are you sure you want to do this?'' 'Because both of my siblings were incredibly intelligent and took very typical career paths - my brother's a genius, my sister has two kids and a horse-back riding career and is in residency [as a Junior Pediatrician] - but there wasn't this adverse risk of failure.' Phoebe and her siblings won't get a big inheritance. The star continued: 'So my parents were really cautious when I was like, ''I want to do Stanford abroad and do this remotely and finish up my degree and do the start-up''. 'They were very much like, ''You need to finish your degree. You don't just get to drop out and [start] a company.'' Which is so funny because my dad literally did that - that's like the reason I'm able to go to Stanford, have my tuition paid.' Bill dropped out of Harvard in 1975 after three semesters to start Microsoft, a decision which helped earn him his estimated $107 billion (£83 billion), according to Forbes. Phoebe added that, despite having a close relationship with her father, she has few recollections of him discussing Microsoft with her. 'I literally never remember my dad talking to me about the start of Microsoft. I literally mostly just remember him talking about the Foundation,' she said. Instead of depending entirely on knowledge passed down from her father, Phoebe claimed that she is securing her future through a solid work ethic. She said: 'I really like the results we're seeing - and this is not just true for business, but any career you're in: it is just the result of habits. 'The tracking we're seeing with our product is really just the result of our habits; it's the result of loving your work, waking up early, working 'til damn late on this company because you love it. 'It's not work-life balance: this is your life, and you really enjoy it. It has to be fun, and you have to have the habits built around that. 'And controlling - being able to control that part of your brain that wants to stay in bed and being like, I don't want to eat but I need to go eat lunch because I need to be productive this afternoon.' Gates offered the example of embracing rejection as a habit she and Kianni adopted to enable success. She said: 'A habit that we had that I thought was so good at the beginning was just constant outreach and constant acceptance of rejection. 'When we were trying to get our first partnerships for Phia, we would outreach like... we maxed out the LinkedIn credits. And they wouldn't grant us more because we hit the limit. 'We'd get people respond like, ''Please leave me alone and never email me''. We'd still respond again. 'I really feel the greatest lesson from this is vulnerability is not embarrassing. Yes, our cold email outreach template was awful at first, and it was a complete flop, but I've connected with some of those people now, and they were like, ''Good for you for reaching out in college.''
Forbes
11-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Podcasting Is Fueling Sophia Kianni And Phoebe Gates' Fashion Startup Phia
Think this is nice? It's a version of the weekly Under 30 newsletter and would be even better in your inbox . Courtesy of Phia 'When I launched Spanx there was no social media… I had to stand on department store floors for seven to eight hours a day spreading the word.' Sara Blakley told Sophia Kianni and Phoebe Gates on her episode of their podcast, The Burnouts . 'Now, you can have a social media post go viral and everybody kinda knows what you're up to.' That's why content is a cornerstone strategy to how Kianni and Gates are building their startup, Phia. Today, Phia is a mobile app that uses AI to help online shoppers identify where a product is sold, and which is the most affordable option—offering tools like cross-website price checks, resale value graphs and creating personal collections. They've partnered with resale giants like eBay, The RealReal, and Poshmark to make secondhand shopping easier. Retailers like Reformation and Prada are also partners. And Phia makes a commission on each purchase made when it's found through the platform. 'It's completely free for customers. So it's really a win-win if we end up driving a customer to one of our partners,' Kianni told Forbes . Kianni initially made the Under 30 list in 2023 for Climate Cardinals, a youth-led organization that translates climate resources into more than 100 languages. Growing up an Iranian American, she realized that her family living in the Middle East was experiencing temperatures rising at more than twice the global average. Yet almost no one in the community understood the greenhouse gas effect, she said: 'I felt like there was a big issue in climate education, particularly in translating climate resources into languages other than English.' courtesy of Kianni She first went viral on social media during the pandemic while building the organization, and tens of thousands of young viewers signed up to help translate resources. 'I learned all of these little things that I now 100% have applied to Phia, just in terms of what it took to take something from zero to one,' she said. Kianni then met Gates, the daughter of Forbes billionaires Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates (a connection which has undoubtedly helped their ability to connect with the best minds and investors in tech) as roommates at Stanford University. 'I was doing a lot of fast fashion activism and advocacy, and Phoebe had done an internship at British Vogue, so she cared a lot about fashion and had seen the impact,' said Kianni, adding that like much of Gen Z, they loved secondhand shopping but felt it was an unnecessarily cumbersome process. An entrepreneurship professor liked their initial idea, a browser extension that made secondhand retail easier, and invested the first $250,000 as a grant. They've since raised $850,000 total from A-list entrepreneurs including Blakley and Kris Jenner. Like many companies, they're relying heavily on content to grow. Phia social media accounts have more than 100,000 followers across platforms and they write a newsletter on Substack, an increasingly popular place for brands to build community (fashion companies Tory Burch and The RealReal are on the platform, too). But they took it to the content big leagues this March when they signed with podcaster Alex Cooper's Unwell Network. Their cohosted show The Burnouts covers the ins and outs of building their startup, and guests have included Jenner, Paris Hilton, Forbes Top Creator Vivian Tu and more. They never set out to be podcasters. Instead, the idea spawned from a meeting with their advisor, Joanne Bradford, who was the president of Honey, the online coupon extension that sold to PayPal for $4 billion in 2020. 'She told us that one of their best converting ad channels was Call Her Daddy, ' Kianni said. They were then connected with Cooper via a mutual friend, and once Phia was ready to launch, Kianni and Gates pitched her a show about the behind the scenes of what female entrepreneurship looks like and sharing their learnings in real time. 'We don't have millions of dollars to spend on Call Her Daddy ads, but we do have ourselves,' said Kianni. 'It was a win-win where we were able to have this incredible distribution vehicle that is able to provide essentially all of this organic coverage to Phia.' Talk soon, Alex, Zoya and Alexandra $40 Mic To $650 Million Firm: How Harry Stebbings Is Rewiring European Venture Capital Stebbings At 18, Harry Stebbings ditched college to start a podcast and interview the world's top venture capitalists. A decade later, he manages $650 million in assets under his London-based firm, 20VC, which is backed by powerhouses like J. Rothschild Capital Management and MIT. Now Stebbings is on a mission: To keep European founders from fleeing to Silicon Valley to build their billion-dollar startups. What's his game plan? Find out here. Lister Lowdown -2024 Under 30 Music lister and DJ John Summit is helping revive New York's dance music scene. His label, Experts Only, has announced a namesake electronic dance music festival set for September 20–21 on Randall's Island—the former home of Electric Zoo, which was canceled in 2023 following logistical failures and multiple lawsuits. The line up includes artists like Brazil's Roddy Lima, American DJ Kaskade, and of course, Summit himself. -The Blue Box Biomedical Solutions, a Barcelona-based startup aiming to address the gap in breast cancer screening for women ages 20 to 49, this month announced it raised $3.5 million to begin clinical trials for a non-invasive, urine-based breast cancer screening test. Founded by 2024 Under 30 Europe alumna Judit Giró Benet, the startup's funding round was led by Unconventional Ventures, with participation from Austria-based Fund F and Barcelona's Grow Ventures, including others. -Kalshi, a federally regulated betting platform that allows users to buy contracts based on the likelihood of future events, just closed a $185 million funding round led by Paradigm. The company, founded by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara who made the Under 30 Finance list in 2022, has solidified its unicorn status with a valuation of $2 billion. By charging a transaction fee on binary 'yes or no' contracts, the company generates revenue by facilitating trades for users hoping to win big on their knowledge of current events. One Minute with Patrick Gilligan Gilligan We're bringing you the scoop on a new Under 30 community member. Up this week: 2025 Under 30 Healthcare lister Patrick Gilligan, the founder of Somethings, a peer-to-peer mental health platform designed for the digital generation. Somethings connects teenagers with certified young adult mentors via their mobile app. The following has been slightly edited for length and clarity. When did you decide that youth mental health is an issue that deserves your attention? I struggled with an eating disorder as a teenager and my own journey to recovery made me very passionate about that space. When I saw the statistics—40% of kids are struggling with mental health, 20% have had suicidal ideation in the last year, 10% having attempted—I thought 'there is no other problem that is more worth solving.' That was three years ago, and I've sort of jumped in headfirst ever since. How do Somethings mentors offer support that is different from the typical mental health service? Certified peer specialists offer a different relationship dynamic than a clinician. The teen is with someone who's been in their shoes and isn't there to treat or diagnose them. They work on motivational interviewing and mindfulness meditation. What has been an important revelation you have had since your debut on Forbes 30 Under 30 Healthcare list last year? There is so much need and demand for effective services for kids. The big change in our world has been the federal Medicaid cuts, because we serve a lot of low-income kids on Medicaid. But even in the face of these cuts, the problems persist–and the kids still need services. What is your total funding to date? How do you pitch to investors? We have raised a little over $6 million to date. My pitch to investors is: 'The current model will not work for the next generation.' Most teen-focused mental health products are really just traditional clinical products with the label 'teen' slapped on it. The underlying premise investors have to agree with me on is that kids who grew up with a smartphone from the age of 8, and TikTok from the age of 12, are not going to respond to old formats. What is your favorite self-care regimen? It's the combination of yoga, journaling and meditation. If I do all three of these things in the morning, it is almost guaranteed that I have an amazing day. What is the origin story of the company name? We met one teenager who said she wanted to be on the cover of Vogue . Someone on our team asked her, how she would feel if it was Teen Vogue instead. She said, 'I do not want to be on the cover of Teen Vogue at all. It is so much worse than Vogue.' We found it interesting that she had this huge aversion to the teen version, so we started talking about how teenagers have a natural craving for independence. They want to be adults, but aren't included in the age bracket of '20-somethings,' or '30-somethings.' So we thought, why don't we help include them in the adult world by calling it 'Somethings.' What is one belief you have about mental health support services that few people agree with? My hot take is that the mental health crisis is the most important thing that could have happened to our society and humanity—so long as we get through it. In my own experience, my life has only radically changed for the positive after the hardest moments. I think difficult times force self-reflection, both individually and collectively. There is a generational opportunity to upgrade people's default mindset and their way of looking at themselves and the world. Do you have any parting words for aspiring founders in the healthcare or mental health space? For healthcare founders specifically, you need to ensure that you are solving a problem for the customer , not just the patient. You can't just pitch a better patient experience if there is no real benefit to the customer who is often a health insurance plan, a health system, or a doctor. Your value prop needs to align with both the patient and the customer.
New York Post
08-07-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Melinda French Gates refuses to fund daughter's startup despite $31 billion net worth
Melinda French Gates doesn't want to raise a nepo baby. The ex-wife of Bill Gates and longtime philanthropist, with a net worth of $31 billion, said she refused to fund her daughter's startup. 'I have a daughter who just started a business this year,' said French Gates, 60, during a recent talk with tennis legend Billie Jean King during the Power of Women's Sports Summit. Advertisement 'She got capitalized, not because of my contacts, not because of me. I wouldn't put money into it.' The mom did not name the daughter, but Phoebe Gates, the youngest of her three children with the Microsoft founder, recently launched an AI-powered fashion app called Phia with her Stanford roommate, Sophia Kianni. The platform compares clothing prices across 40,000 sites to help users find the best deals. Advertisement 'It is very, very hard to get your business funded if you're a woman,' French Gates said. 'And so you do have to learn a bit how to have the courage to play the game and to stick with it.' French Gates has long invested in women's rights philanthropy, previously serving as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for nearly 25 years. 3 Melinda French Gates and Phoebe Gates at the 2024 Albie Awards. FilmMagic However, she said it's important that her daughter learns how to fund her startup the hard way. Advertisement If this is a 'real business,' French Gates said, then others need to be willing to back it – and if not, her daughter will learn to handle rejection. 'That's what I told her. She's growing from this,' she added. Phoebe, 22, didn't seem to mind getting the brush-off from her rich mom, who walked away from her 2021 divorce with an estimated $25 billion settlement. 'We don't want this to be something that's funded by my family – we want this to be a real company,' Phoebe, 22, told The Post earlier this year. Advertisement 'That's really important for us … while I have a ton of privilege coming from my family, it's about having a product that stands on its own.' 3 Sophia Kianni and Phoebe Gates in New York City. Christopher Peterson / It's not the first time the family made it clear that they want their children to carve a name for themselves. Bill Gates has previously said their three children – daughter Jennifer, 30, son Rory, 25, and Phoebe – would inherit 'less than 1%' of his fortune after his death. While French Gates refused to contribute to Phia, and the company's funding remains private, Kris Jenner has publicly said she's backing the platform. 3 Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni discuss their platform Phia with the New York Post. Brian Zak/NY Post The recent Stanford graduates also launched a podcast in April called 'The Burnouts' on 'Call Her Daddy' founder Alex Cooper's Unwell Network, tracking their early entrepreneurial experiences. Advertisement 'A really critical piece of marketing is this founder-led growth and pulling back the curtain on what it's like to be a founder and to learn,' Phoebe told The Post at the time. The daughter of Bill and Melinda Gates previously interned at British Vogue and has spoken publicly on reproductive rights at several events.
Economic Times
08-07-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
Melinda Gates refuses to fund daughter's startup, despite $31 billion net worth
Melinda French Gates did not fund her daughter's startup. She wants her daughter to learn business independently. Phoebe Gates, along with Sophia Kianni, launched 'Phia'. It is a fashion-tech platform for comparing clothing prices. Melinda wants her daughters to be strong. She highlighted the challenges women face in securing business funding. Billie Jean King emphasized learning from setbacks. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads She wants her daughter to learn and grow on her own Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Melinda says it's about making daughters stronger Setbacks help women succeed, says Billie Jean King FAQs Melinda French Gates is worth around $30.8 billion, but she still refused to give money to her daughter's startup. She said this during the Power of Women's Sports Summit by E.l.f. Beauty, explaining her decision, as per the reports.'My daughter started a business this year,' Melinda said, 'but I didn't fund it—not because of my contacts or money.' She believes if it's a real business, others should invest in it, not just her as a parent, as per the report by also said her daughter needs to learn how to deal with rejection and grow from it. This mindset matches what her ex-husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, has said before: He once said that his children would inherit less than 1% of his didn't name the daughter, but most likely it's Phoebe Gates, the youngest one, who is 22 years old. Phoebe Gates recently launched a fashion-tech startup called 'Phia' with her Stanford roommate, Sophia Kianni, according to the report by helps users compare clothing prices from over 40,000 websites to find the best deals. Earlier this year, Phoebe also said her parents didn't let her drop out of Stanford to start the company—unlike Bill Gates, who dropped out of says this is not about being strict—it's about teaching daughters to be strong and independent in a world that's tough on women. She shared that successful women often go through difficult times and come out stronger, as per the report by has been fighting for women's empowerment for over 20 years and says that female founders still have a harder time raising funds than men. She said, 'It's really hard for women to get business funding. You need courage and persistence to stay in the game', as mentioned in the legend Billie Jean King, who was at the summit with Melinda, agreed and said setbacks help people grow. King also said she has banned the word 'failure' and replaced it with the idea of 'getting feedback', according to the report by believes feedback is more useful than fearing failure—and helps founders keep moving forward. According to global data, only 2.3% of venture capital went to female founders last year, proving how tough the startup world is for women, as stated in the Gates said she wants her daughter to learn how real businesses work and grow through rejection without family Gates co-founded 'Phia,' a fashion-tech platform that helps users compare clothing prices from over 40,000 websites.
