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Bill Gates might dominate the tech world, but his daughter says he’s a little less smooth at cocktail chatter.
On the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, 23-year-old Phoebe Gates told host Alex Cooper she’s “way more of a people person” than her dad — the kind who talks to everyone in the room while he plans an escape route.
“It used to be a joke that our family would be so boring if I wasn’t born,” she said. “I’d force my dad, like, at the daddy-daughter dances my mom would have us go to. I’d force my dad to go talk to all the other dads and daughters. He would get like nervous and leave. And I was like, no—if we’re here, we’re going to socialize. We gotta work this room, Bill.”
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That confidence now shows up in business form. Phoebe co-founded Phia, a fashion-tech startup built with her Stanford roommate and climate activist Sophia Kianni. The company’s browser extension compares prices across roughly 40,000 listings — both new and secondhand — blending her dad’s analytical DNA with her own knack for connection.
But unlike many billionaire offspring, Phoebe didn’t call on family money to fund it. “
Bill told The New York Times that he would have helped if she’d asked. “And then I would have kept her on a short leash and be doing business reviews, which I would have found tricky, and I probably would have been overly nice but wondered if it was the right thing to do,” he said. “Luckily, it never happened.”
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Bill and Melinda French Gates wanted their kids to prove themselves on their own. That decision doesn’t just make for a nice narrative — it makes the business more credible. Investors and users alike see a startup built on real execution, not inherited capital.
Phia’s model revolves around affiliate links and AI-driven marketing, earning revenue from retail partners each time a shopper clicks or buys through the platform. The company also uses machine learning to track price shifts across thousands of brands, helping users score better deals — a feature that positions Phia at the intersection of fashion, data, and financial literacy.
Phoebe told Business Insider that she and Kianni even use ChatGPT and spreadsheets to “reverse-engineer” what makes videos go viral, turning analytics into marketing. It’s Gates-level precision with Gen Z style. She approaches influence the same way her dad approached code — as a system you can study, tweak, and scale.
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The duo also co-host “The Burnouts,” a podcast about the highs and lows of young entrepreneurship. It’s part confession, part marketing strategy — showing that relatability can be just as powerful as venture capital. Every episode, social clip, and interview drives visibility for Phia’s mission: make smarter spending feel cool.
Bill Gates may prefer spreadsheets to small talk, but his daughter’s showing that the next generation of Gates entrepreneurs knows how to code and connect.
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This article Bill Gates’ Youngest Daughter Says He’s Not Much of a People Person But She ‘Forces’ Him Out Of His Shell, ‘We Gotta Work This Room, Bill’ originally appeared on Benzinga.com