Bill Gates’ daughter Phoebe Gates unpacked her insecurities about being considered a “nepo baby.”
“I had so much insecurity and such a desire to prove myself [at Stanford],” Phoebe, 22, shared on her podcast, “The Burnouts,” which she cohosts with friend and business partner Sophia Kianni, during the Tuesday, April 1, episode.
“I came in, I was like, ‘I’m so privileged, I’m a nepo baby,’” Phoebe explained. “I had so much insecurity around that and I feel like it’s so hard when you’re a freshman in college because you have no experience. You have nothing.”
Phoebe, the youngest daughter of Bill and Melinda Gates (who split in 2021 after 27 years of marriage), graduated from Stanford University in June 2024. Her podcast with Kianni, 23, launched in April 2025, and is meant for the two former dorm roommates to share their experience of getting their startup, Phia, off the ground.
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During Tuesday’s episode, Phoebe elaborated on her parents’ attitude toward starting her own business, saying that Bill and Melinda were “really cautious” when she started thinking about founding Phia.
“I literally never hear my dad talk about the start of Microsoft,” she explained. “I literally mostly just remember him talking about the foundation and I remember me wanting to start the company [and] him being like, ‘Are you sure you wanna do this?’ Because both of my siblings were incredibly intelligent, they took very typical career paths.”
Along with Phoebe, Melinda and the Microsoft founder share daughter Jennifer and son Rory. Phoebe added that with her siblings’ careers, there “wasn’t this adverse risk of failure” like when working on a startup.
Phia is an online fashion platform that will be available as a free Chrome extension, which will inform shoppers on the future value of the products they buy online. It will also assist customers in finding deals on resale sites.
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“Sophia and I are first-time founders, and learning as we go,” Phoebe told People in November 2024. “With Phia’s beta, we’re building with our customers, so we can deliver a product that ultimately makes them the smartest shoppers in the room.”
In another interview with People earlier this month, Phoebe described her and Kianni’s “dream listener” for the podcast as “the girl who’s grinding, she’s moving up the ladder, she’s working hard, she’s falling down and getting back up.” She added, “And she’s listening in her AirPods on the way to work.”