Bill Gates daughter tells what her mother Melinda Gates told her when she called her crying after facing constant question on having kids

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ daughter, Phoebe Gates, has shared a piece of advice that she got from her mother, Melinda French Gates, about tackling investors. The 22-year-old co-founder of fashion pricing startup Phia got this advice from her mother after she faced queries from potential investors about her future motherhood. While raising funds for Phia with co-founder Sophia Kianni , Gates was asked what would happen if they decided to have children. On the Call Her Daddy podcast, Phoebe shared that this line of questioning prompted a call to her mother. She noted that her mother’s reply was: "Get up or get out of the game, sis."


Phoebe Gates names the most common bias in venture capital


According to a report by Benzinga, both founders said that these inquiries expose a persistent bias in venture capital. “Always children,” Gates said when asked to name the most common bias they’ve faced.

Kianni said she turned the tables on a male investor by asking: "What's going to happen to your venture firm when you have kids?"

"He's like, ‘Why would that affect anything?' And I was like, ‘You answered your own question.'” she added.

Gates and Kianni’s experiences mirror a recent Oxfam study on rising CEO pay, which found that among 45,501 companies in 168 countries with over $10 million in revenue, women occupy fewer than 7% of top leadership roles, the report added.

What BIll Gates said about funding Phoebe’s Phia app

In a New York Times interview published soon after Phia’s launch, Bill Gates said that he was “happy” not to fund his daughter Phoebe’s AI-powered shopping app, Phia, because doing so would have meant micromanaging the business.

“I thought, ‘Oh boy, she’s going to come and ask.” Gates explained that had he invested, “then I would have kept her on a short leash and be doing business reviews, which I would have found tricky, and I probably would have been overly nice, but wondered if it was the right thing to do? Luckily, it never happened.”

Instead of providing capital, he offers guidance to his daughter on personnel issues, noting, “When it comes to shopping, I’m not exactly the target audience.”