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 August 16 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. Also shows poorly on Bill Gates as a father since he didn't teach his daughter value creation and she defaulted to value extraction and fraud as a business model. 

Edited August 17 by LordFall

[PsychedelicEagle]

Like father, like daughter

[Leo Gura]

Honey 2.0

Not even an original scam.

[oOo]

This is one reason to possibly be against having children. Imagine you become a billionaire and the child you raise decides to not necessarily embarrass you intentionally, but worse, unintentionally because it comes at the hand of everyone viewing you as a genius and you no doubt spent millions on her overpriced education. At least if you raised your children as a drunken trailer park abusive father, a scam like this from your daughter would be considered an 'achievement' that reveals her potential and thus, 'just a minor setback', plus 'she should eventually be able to save her drunken father'. At the same time though, what's more embarassing right now, to be Bill or the daughter, or two, to be Bill because of his daughters actions or to be the daughter... because of Bill's actions that you'd have to be living under a rock to not know anything about.

I am open minded about having children, not solidified, but honestly I think it is better to wait until I have their first 20 years completely mapped; as well as to make sure I leave the trailer park first. Sally two trailers down though has asked me to comma roun for some tele watchin with her two kids, or should I say, bito action in her u know where while they be on tele break, with a bit of a drink and u know what, so maybe u know, might giv er a third or furth, with the fifth if we have it, make definitely better speller than me. Jokes aside, parenting is serious business, in a playground adults need be the architects of not submissive to pre-existing environments; that's the new definition of responsible parenting from the creative axis. 

[LordFall]

Seems like you have quite a shallow view of the world. Why do you care about being embarrassed? Especially as Bill Gates the ex richest man of the world lol. I'm more concerned about why he raised his kids with the self confidence of a deflated balloon to the point that she felt she had to do this to prove herself to the world.

Gary Vee talks about self-esteem constantly, Bill should've watched a few of his videos. 

[Basman]

Apple does not fall far from the tree.