{"id":25356,"date":"2025-07-26T15:36:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T15:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/25356\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T15:36:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T15:36:13","slug":"bill-gates-says-when-your-daughter-asks-if-youd-be-willing-to-work-a-shift-in-customer-service-at-her-startup-the-only-right-answer-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/25356\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Gates says: When your daughter asks if you\u2019d be willing to work a shift in customer service at her startup, the only right answer is …"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bill Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, recently demonstrated a unique approach to leadership and family support by working a shift in customer service for his daughter Phoebe’s new startup. In a LinkedIn post Bill Gates<\/a> revealed that his daughter Phoebe Gates asked him to work a shift in customer service at her AI-powered fashion startup \u2014 Phoebe and Gates agreed to it. \u201cI\u2019ve entered the startup world again\u2026 When your daughter asks if you\u2019d be willing to work a shift in customer service at her startup, the only right answer is yes,\u201d wrote Gates in a LinkedIn post.Phoebe Gates co-founded Phia along with her Stanford roommate Sophia Kianni. The platform uses AI to help users compare prices of new and second-hand products across more than 40,000 websites. A web browser\/app, Phia aims to be the Booking.com of fashion, offering an instant price comparison from thousands of e-commerce sites for any item, new or used. Phoebe Gates is the youngest child of Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates. Bill Gates joined the customer service team of Phia for one day in order to understand how the product works.<\/p>\n

A lesson in leadership<\/p>\n

Bill Gates revealed that this experience reminded him that \u201cthe best way to understand how something works\u2014or where it breaks\u2014is to go straight to the people using it.\u201d His stint echoes a growing trend among tech CEOs to spend time on the front lines, following examples like Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who famously delivered food and drove passengers to better grasp user pain points.<\/p>\n

Read Bill Gates complete LinkedIn post here<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve entered the startup world again\u2026When your daughter asks if you\u2019d be willing to work a shift in customer service at her startup, the only right answer is yes.I\u2019ve spent a lot of time thinking about how technology can make systems more efficient, equitable, and accessible. But I\u2019ve learned over the years that the best way to understand how something works, or where it breaks, is to go straight to the people using it.That\u2019s why I\u2019ll be joining the Phia customer experience team for a day this week. Phia is a fashion-tech tool built to make shopping smarter and more sustainable, and it\u2019s the brainchild of my daughter Phoebe Gates and her co-founder Sophia Kianni.They\u2019ve built an app and browser extension that helps people shop smarter by finding the best prices, surfacing secondhand options, and showing lower-impact alternatives across thousands of online retailers.It\u2019s been inspiring to watch them tackle a massive challenge, rethinking the way we shop, by meeting users where they are.And now, I\u2019ll be doing the same.Looking forward to getting back into the startup scene. Hopefully, I won\u2019t break anything (no promises).\ud83d\udcf2Download the Phia iOS app for free at join.phia.com\ud83d\udcbbOr if you shop on your computer like me, they have a free chrome extension at gophia.comLet me know what you think! You never know who\u2019s on the other end of the customer service line\u2026Earlier, in April, Bill Gates shared that he intentionally chose not to invest in his daughter\u2019s AI-powered shopping app, Phia, during a podcast. He explained that funding the venture would have led him to oversee it too closely. Instead, he offered advice on staffing while others handled the investment. “In an interview published by the New York Times, soon after Phia\u2019s web browser and app went live, Bill Gates said: \u201cI thought, \u2018Oh boy, she\u2019s going to come and ask.\u201d \u201cI would have kept her on a short leash and be doing business reviews, which I would have found tricky,\u201d the businessman explained of his hesitance. \u201cAnd I probably would have been overly nice but wondered if it was the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Big Question Answered: Why Google is Merging Android and ChromeOS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, recently demonstrated a unique approach to leadership and family support by working a shift…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,16009,733,4308,6181,16008,16007,16006,16005,16004,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-25356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-ai-powered-fashion-startup","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-bill-gates","13":"tag-customer-service","14":"tag-microsoft-co-founder","15":"tag-phia","16":"tag-phoebe-gates","17":"tag-price-comparison-app","18":"tag-technology","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}