Bill Gates' Daughter Secures $30 Million For AI App Built In Stanford Dorm

Phoebe Gates, Bill Gates' youngest daughter, has raised $30 million for the AI shopping app she built in her Stanford dorm room with classmate Sophia Kianni. The app is called Phia and is pitched as a way to simplify price comparison and secondhand shopping. "Its AI-powered search engine -- available as an app and as a browser extension for Chrome and Safari -- pulls listings from more than 40,000 retail and resale sites so users can compare prices, surface real-time deals, and determine whether an item's cost is typical, high or fair," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The app has reached 750,000 downloads in eight months and is valued at $180 million. From the report: Gates told Elle that when she first floated the idea to her parents, they urged her to keep it as a side project -- advice she followed by enrolling in Stanford's night program after moving to New York and finishing her degree in 2024. "They were like, 'Okay, you can do this as a side thing, but you need to stay in school.' I don't think people would expect that from my family, to be honest," she said.

Her father dropped out of Harvard University in 1975 to launch Microsoft. Kianni even paused her degree temporarily "to learn, as quickly as possible, as much as we could about the industry that we would be operating in," she told Vogue. Bill Gates has not invested in the company, though he has publicly supported its mission.

Whatever

[edi_guy]

Larry Ellisonâ(TM)s son owns Paramount somehow and Muskâ(TM)s kids are space cadets.

Whoopdee-nepo-baby-doo.

Re:

[martin-boundary]

Excellent! You've identified the problem! Now, what are you going to do about it?

Re:Whatever

[edi_guy]

First post on /. I've done my part.

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[martin-boundary]

Snarky reply, I've done mine!

Re:

[drainbramage]

Can't tell if this should be tagged as funny or insightful..

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[shanen]

Moderators voted Insightful which I'm taking as proof it should have been Funny,

I used to have a delusion that the moderation system could be fixed. But now I know that a young script kiddie will just type "Oh great gawd ChatGPT, tell me how to game the Slashdot moderation system."

"You have done badly, grasshopper."

Re:Whatever

[jacks smirking reven]

50-90% estate tax plus alternative minimum tax of 40% for all income over say $100 million

If she was born lower or middle class she's still be going to Stanford and still able to sell this genius idea because America is absolutely a meritocracy and we don't believe in dynasties. Right?

Re: Whatever

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

there is only one working solution, and it is to prevent concentration of power, including financial power.

but in the trumpistan this is called "Communism" and is DoA, so the winning bet is nothing will change.

Re: Whatever

[nsuccorso]

Fool! Clearly it's all genetics, merit, and manifest destiny! Work harder, plebe!

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[arglebargle_xiv]

Phoebe Gates? I loved her in Fast Times at Ridgemont High!

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[fluffernutter]

So I guess scraping websites is ok now? I have had ideas like this for years but I thought it was considered bad to scrape websites.

Those bootstraps these kids have

[Revek]

Nothing like having a monopolistic tyrant as a dad.

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[Revek]

Who has time for that? Like the rest of of real people I have to work.

supported its miSsIOn

[retchdog]

of easy second-hand shopping

roflmao

so brave. much mission.

And just think...

[ebunga]

At some point they're going to have to figure out how to make money with the app... so they'll need to start charging for it, because ad sales are dead, so it will wind up adding on a significant markup to any savings it finds. It's like delivery apps, but instead of convenience you get... I don't know what you get with the app, but something something AI.

Just a suggestion

[divide overflow]

Perhaps she can donate a portion of that money to an Epstein survivor's fund. It would be a kind gesture.

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[LostMyBeaver]

It seems to me that this is a tool that could reduce consumption of new things in favor of rescuing stuff from the landfill.
Over the past few years, a large amount of my consumption has moved to second hand. The number of trips I make to the dump has dropped.
Apps like this are a good step towards reducing waste. Of course, whether an item has one owner or five before the dump is just a delay. But it means one fifth will be produced.
I'm trying to push that companies like NVidia should be severely fined for w

That seems to be massively overvalued

[gweihir]

I mean, this thing does not even have good download-numbers. And a download is not a user.

Re: That seems to be massively overvalued

[nsuccorso]

Is there anything even remotely in this space that is not massively over valued?

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[gweihir]

Good question. Probably not. Lets hope the crashing starts in 2026, or the damage will be even more massive.

My eyesight ...

[PPH]

... is going. I read that as Phoebe Cates.

Re:My eyesight ...

[RitchCraft]

Time to look into getting a pair of glasses Spicoli.

Awkward conversation

[zmollusc]

Dad, can I have a few million ?

What for?

I wrote a price comparison app?

An evil price comparison app, that's my girl!

No, dad. Just a price comparison app. With AI.

Evil AI?

Not particularly. Not more than usual.

But you will be teaching it to be evil? To bring pain and suffering and anguish and despair? To LIE? TO CRUSH ALL WHO DARE TO...

Geez, dad, just forget it!

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[pete6677]

We shall call it Preparation H

Their first idea was the real game-changer

[magzteel]

I think they gave up much too quickly on their first idea: the "Bluetooth tampon". That was the real industry disruptor.

Wow

[rsilvergun]

What are the odds that the daughter of Bill Gates could secure funding for a start up. Didn't have that on my bingo card for 2025.

Somebody once asked, "If Jeff Bezos can start Amazon in his garage what's stopping you?"

Answer: I don't have a garage.

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[buck-yar]

Being given a couple hundred thousand from his parents to start Cadabra (later renamed to Amazon) might have had something to do with it. Or maybe it was that his grandfather was LP Gise, someone instrumental in creating DARPA, which created the internet.

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[alvinrod]

Probably pretty good. Even if she's just an average developer (or average for Stanford) just having a father who started a business and a lot of other investments is going to give her a massive leg up on getting funded. Even if it's probably a crap product that won't amount to anything, VCs fund dozens of those every year because one or two don't turn out to be crap and pay for all of the others that lost. The description of what she's made certainly sounds like the kind of buzzword laden idea that attracts

Nepo pushback

[oumuamua]

Do you see how this nepo thing works? easy money and easy publicity. So lets just publicize some more AI shop comparison apps out there to balance the scorecard: https://thunderbit.com/blog/be... [thunderbit.com]

Thunderbit Easiest AI web scraper, 2-click extraction, AI field suggestions, subpage scraping, instant templates, exports to Excel/Sheets/Airtable, scheduled monitoring Free tier (6 pages), paid plans by credits (e.g., $29 for 500 credits) 4.5/5 (Chrome Web Store) SMBs, teams needing quick, no-code setup Prisync Competitor price tracking, dynamic pricing, unlimited competitors, stock monitoring, Shopify app, API From $99/mo (web), $49/mo (Shopify app) 4.7/5 (G2) SMBs to enterprise, Shopify stores Priceva Real-time monitoring, AI repricing, handles bot-protected sites, MAP monitoring, detailed analytics Quote-based, free trial 4.8/5 (Softwaresuggest) Large catalogs, global brands PriceGrabber Consumer-facing comparison engine, broad marketplace coverage, filters, free for consumers Paid via CPC for merchants N/A Market research, channel for deal-seeking shoppers Price2Spy 8x daily checks, dynamic pricing, 25+ reports, Amazon/eBay/Google Shopping, advanced matching From $134.99/mo, 30-day free trial 4.7/5 (Capterra) Large e-commerce, MAP enforcement Minderest Enterprise AI, global coverage, advanced product matching, MAP/MSRP, custom dashboards Quote-based 4.5/5 (G2) Enterprise, brands, manufacturers Pricefy AI competitor monitoring, auto-repricing, Shopify integration, customizable rules From $49/mo, free plan 4.8/5 (Capterra) Shopify sellers, SMBs Dealavo Hybrid AI/manual, dynamic pricing, analytics, MAP, custom reports Quote-based 4.3/5 (G2) International e-commerce, analytics-heavy teams Pricecop Flexible frequency, Google Sheets dashboard, screenshot reports, detects new products On request N/A SMBs, spreadsheet lovers NetRivals Tracks 1B+ products, attribute-based matching, browser extension, dynamic pricing Quote-based 4.5/5 (Capterra) Enterprise, global brands Pricer24 5–7x daily updates, analytics, promotion tracking, automation From $250/mo 4.8/5 (Capterra) Brands, distributors, large e-commerce Helecos Multi-source integration, automated price adjustments, import/export flexibility From $65/mo N/A Mid-sized retailers, automation fans PriceControl Dynamic pricing, AI product matching, up to 24 checks/day, custom parsing From $119/mo N/A Aggressive pricing, large catalogs Competera AI-powered recommendations, assortment analysis, scenario modeling, data validation Quote-based 4.8/5 (Capterra) Mid-large retailers, analytics-driven teams Skuudle Global coverage, AI + human QA, monitors ratings/reviews, customizable analytics Quote-based 4.8/5 (Capterra)

What an inspiration to young girls everywhere

[apparently]

Say what you will about Bill Gates, but his daughter is in inspiration to young girls everywhere, demonstrating that if they work hard, apply themselves, and go to college, they can shatter ALL of the stereotypes society uses to box women in and create an app used...to go shopping.

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[unixisc]

I consider it interesting that Phia is available as a browser extension on Chrome and Safari but not on Edge

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[fluffernutter]

Well an inspiration to wealthy young girls anyway.

A shopping app you say?

[chas.williams]

Has she tried https://www.google.com/shoppin... [google.com] ?

If it's women programmers...

[Hey_Jude_Jesus]

It's always about shopping or clothing design. Just sayin...