Bill Gates, the philanthropic billionaire and co-founder of Microsoft Corp. MSFT, recently took on a customer service role at his daughter’s AI fashion startup.
What Happened: Gates revealed in a LinkedIn post that he planned to work in a shift in customer service for a day at Phia, the fashion startup co-founded by his daughter, Phoebe Gates. The company uses AI to compare prices of new and second-hand products across over 40,000 websites.
A small video also accompanied the post, where Gates and his daughter read customer comments. Gates ended the video saying, “You never know who’s behind the screen.”
“I’ve entered the startup world again… When your daughter asks if you’d be willing to work a shift in customer service at her startup, the only right answer is yes,” wrote Gates in the post.
He also mentioned that the experience served as a reminder that, “the best way to understand how something works—or where it breaks—is to go straight to the people using it.”
Why It Matters: Phoebe Gates is the youngest daughter of Bill Gates and his former wife, Melinda French Gates.
Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, Stanford roommates, bonded over fashion, climate advocacy, and secondhand shopping, eventually leading to the creation of Phia. Their original concept was a browser extension that simplified secondhand shopping, a concept that impressed one of their professors so much that he granted them a $250,000 startup fund.
Phia aspires to become the Booking.com of fashion by instantly comparing prices for any new or pre-owned item across thousands of e-commerce platforms
Interestingly, Phoebe’s mother, Melinda French Gates, refused to fund her daughter’s new venture, insisting she raise outside capital based on merit. This move by Bill Gates to step into a customer service role at Phia not only shows his support for his daughter’s venture but also his commitment to understanding the product from the ground up.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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