Billionaire Bill Gates Says He Didn’t Fund His Daughter Phoebe’s Business Venture

Baila Eve ZismanApril 28, 2025, 10:06 pmNews >

Bill Gates revealed that he did not give his daughter, Phoebe Gates, any financial assistance to start her career.

Gates and his ex-wife, Melina French Gates, share their children, Jennifer, 28, Phoebe, 22, and Rory, 25. The co-founder of Microsoft is currently the 13th richest person in the world, with a net worth of roughly $102.2 billion.

Last year, Phoebe went public with her relationship with Paul McCartney‘s grandson.

Gates previously stressed his belief that his children need to earn their own way in the business world and said that while he would ensure they had a “great upbringing and education,” they would inherit “less than one percent” of his total wealth.

In an interview with The New York Times published on April 24, Gates shared that he was initially skeptical of Phoebe’s career aspirations when she told him she and her Stanford University roommate, Sophia Kianni, were starting a business together. He remembered thinking, “Wow, a lot of people have tried, and there’s some big guys in there.”

He said, “I thought, ‘Oh boy, she’s going to come and ask [for money]’.”

Together, Phoebe and Kianni, 23, created the app Phia, which allows shoppers to compare the prices of new and second-hand items across thousands of e-commerce platforms.

Gates shared that had Phoebe asked, he likely would have funded the business venture. “I would have kept her on a short leash and be doing business reviews which I would have found tricky,” he said. “I probably would’ve been overly nice but wondered if it was the right thing to do? Luckily, it never happened.”

Phoebe and Kianni started the business with a $250,000 Stanford grant from a social entrepreneurship program, along with $100,000 from Soma Capital. Following numerous rejections, they were able to fund another $500,000 through “angel investors.”

Earlier this month, Gates appeared on the Figuring Out with Raj Shamani podcast, where he reasoned his decision not to assist his children financially, saying, “I decided it wouldn’t be a favor to them.”