At just 22, Phoebe Gates is already making waves in the fashion tech world. But as she told listeners on a recent episode of Call Her Daddy, the road to startup success hasn’t come without its share of gendered roadblocks.
Gates, the youngest daughter of billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, co-founded Phia—a fashion tech startup focused on AI-powered pricing tools for the secondhand clothing market—with environmental activist Sophia Kianni. But instead of just pitching their business model, Gates said she and Kianni have repeatedly had to justify their futures as women.
“We’ll have investors ask us all the time, ‘Well, what happens when you two go have babies?’” Gates said. The assumption that motherhood would derail their careers wasn’t just frustrating—it was emotionally exhausting.
In a tearful phone call to her mother, Melinda French Gates offered the kind of no-nonsense advice that entrepreneurs featured in Southern Business Review would recognize as essential leadership grit: “Get up or get out the game.”
At Southern Business Review, we’ve covered how women in leadership—especially in the South—are challenging outdated norms in boardrooms, venture capital meetings, and beyond. Gates’ experience adds to a growing chorus of female founders pushing back against assumptions that men simply don’t face.
When an investor posed the same outdated question about how motherhood might impact their startup, Kianni fired back: “What’s going to happen to your venture firm when you have kids?” A comeback that, according to Southern Business Review, signals a generational shift in how female entrepreneurs command space and respect in business circles.
Though her last name is synonymous with tech and philanthropy, Phoebe Gates is carving out her own path—one rooted in independence. Despite coming from vast wealth, Gates opted not to lean on her family’s fortune to fund Phia. Instead, she pursued venture capital like any other founder—a fact that Southern Business Review notes is becoming more common among children of high-profile families who want to build their own legacy.
A Stanford early graduate, Gates launched Phia not just to disrupt the resale market, but to do so sustainably and intelligently—with AI at the heart of every pricing decision. It’s the kind of innovation Southern Business Review regularly highlights as a hallmark of modern Southern entrepreneurship: smart, purpose-driven, and future-facing.
Melinda French Gates, who has long championed gender equity through her philanthropic work, reportedly instilled in her children a deep awareness of privilege—and the responsibility that comes with it. In interviews covered by Southern Business Review, she’s said she wanted her kids to understand the difference between growing up in wealth and working for something meaningful.
As Southern Business Review continues to spotlight young, bold disruptors who are reshaping the Southern and national business landscape, Phoebe Gates’ story stands as a timely reminder: it’s not about what you inherit—it’s about what you build.
Stay tuned to Southern Business Review for more profiles on the next generation of innovators rewriting the rules—and refusing to let bias define their future.
