Bill Gate's daughter exposed for fraud on Bloomberg

[LordFall]

Phoebe Gates and her roommate Sophia Kianni co-founded an app called Phia which helps shoppers save money while shopping by scanning the internet for coupons. They raised $35,000,000 in January 2026 at a $185M valuation after it now coming out that in December they were aware and authorized a cookie stuffing feature basically making it so when you install their browser app any purchase you make is credited to them.

The Kardashians, Paris Hilton, Hailey Bieber, Alix Earle and Sheryl Sanberg apparently invested in her business.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-11/phia-app-co-founders-pushed-for-features-taking-credit-for-sales-it-didn-t-drive

The funniest part is Elizabeth Holmes who was imprisoned for fraud after her own company Theranos was exposed as lying to the investors and the public, supporting her and agreeing that it's probably just a bug that she didn't know about it. This is like one of the only people in the world that can cause your credibility to tank if they support you lol 

I think as students of self-actualizing and life purpose it's a great example to show that taking the easy way out is well EASY. Solving hard problems for people takes a tremendous amount of insight into the world and what would actually improve peoples lives. Let alone taking that insight and turning it into a commercially viable enterprise. Much easier to come up with an app that actually scams the world than sit down and work 10x harder to help elevate it.

Just to make clear how Cookie Stuffing works (what her company Phia is accused and well guilty of since they just turned it off and it lowered their revenue by over 50%), lets say you click on a fashion influencer's link after she shows you a new t shirt you wanna buy. If you have phia on your device they will get paid and not that fashion influencer, it's fraud and basically theft. It's exactly what Paypal Honey was exposed for last year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_stuffing

They also have a podcast where they interview actually successful founders which makes it harder to run away from the irony

She's only 23 and with fucking Bill Gates footing her legal bill it's doubtful she'll face any legal consequences. Her older Jennifer Gates is a equestrian so I guess she wanted to avoid the rich girl hobby and wanted to prove herself and build something. It'll be interesting to see 10 years down the line if she learns from this and starts something the right way next time or just learns that entrepreneurship is too hard for her and pivots to being just a socialite social media influencer. 

Edited 5 hours ago by LordFall

[aurum]

So basically the Honey playbook?

[LordFall]

Yeah literally the same thing. I don't know why she didn't learn from it and immediately pivot.

They got exposed by a whistleblower on the team in December 2025 someone reported this as a flaw and they told them to keep on keeping on and not to worry about it then in January 2026 they started a series A which is where the securities fraud comes from and opens them up to getting sued by their own investors. 

The human ego never ceases to amaze me. 

Edited 4 hours ago by LordFall