Bill Gates famously dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft, but that doesn’t mean he supports the idea of his daughter Phoebe Gates not finishing college.
On her new podcast, “The Burnouts” — in which she and her cohost, Sophia Kianni, discuss the journey of launching their digital fashion startup, Phia — Gates spoke about how her parents reacted to her wanting to start a business. The premiere episode of the podcast aired on April 1.
“I literally never hear my dad talk about the start of Microsoft,” Gates told Kianni. “I literally mostly just remember him talking about the foundation. I remember me wanting to start the company and him being like, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?'”
Gates is the youngest daughter of Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, who divorced in 2021 after 27 years of marriage. She has two older siblings, Jennifer and Rory.
Gates said her parents were “really cautious” when she mentioned the idea of dropping out of college.
“They were very much like, ‘You need to finish your degree; you don’t just get to like drop out and do a company.’ Which is so funny because my dad literally did that, and that’s, like, the reason I’m able to go to Stanford or have my tuition paid,” Gates said.
Gates also said on the podcast that she always felt a strong need to prove herself — especially when she entered Stanford — because of her background.
“I came in, I was like, ‘I’m so privileged, I’m a nepo baby,'” she said. “I had so much insecurity around that, and I feel like it’s so hard when you’re a freshman in college because you have no experience. You have nothing.”
Gates graduated early with a degree in human biology last year.
“I knew I had to make it happen if I could, because I wanted to watch my mother deliver this year’s commencement speech as a graduate,” Gates told Nylon in an interview in June.
Phia, her startup, is still in the prelaunch stage. The platform’s official website promises “a new way to shop online.” Not much more information is available.
On a recent podcast, Bill Gates said his kids would inherit less than 1% of his wealth.
“In my case, you know, my kids got a great upbringing and education but, you know, less than 1% of the total wealth. Because I decided it wouldn’t be a favor to them,” Bill Gates said in a March 29 appearance on the “Figuring Out With Raj Shamani” podcast.
“It’s not a dynasty. You know, I’m not asking them to run Microsoft. I want to give them a chance to have their own earnings and success, you know, be significant and not overshadowed by the incredible luck and good fortune I had,” he said.