Bill Gates’ “nepo baby” daughter Phoebe Gates, 23, was spotted hopping off a helicopter in New York City clad in merch repping Phia, her multimillion-dollar startup that was accused of an explosive “cookie stuffing” scandal just days earlier.
The youngest Gates wore a Phia-branded sweatshirt with the words “the future of fashion is nothing new” on the back, gray sweatpants, a blue baseball cap and black ballet flats as she was escorted to a chauffeured limousine, toting along a brown purse and a small Dachshund on a leash. She was joined by a friend and bodyguards.
The photo agency that snapped the shots on Sunday told The Post it suspected the Microsoft princess was returning to NYC after a trip to Westchester County, where her sister Jennifer owns a 124-acre, $16 million North Salem horse farm – a gift from parents Bill and Melinda following her graduation from Stanford University.
Phoebe, a recent Stanford alum herself, reportedly lives in a loftlike two-bedroom New York City pad with pink walls and 20-foot ceilings.
The Gen Zer – who insisted that she wanted to succeed without her billionaire parents’ help, saying she has “such a desire to prove myself” – has come under fire after her digital shopping startup was accused of “cookie stuffing.”
The illicit scheme comes with a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison, though legal experts told The Post that Gates – the youngest child of Microsoft founder Bill, who is worth about $108 billion, per Forbes – is more likely to face financial penalties than jail time.
Phia – a digital personal shopping assistant co-founded by Gates with fellow Stanford alum Sophia Kianni – reacted with shock in July following reports that it was dropping more web “cookies” than it should, effectively taking undue credit for driving sales at retail partners.
But according to a new Bloomberg report, the young entrepreneurs had known for at least seven months that their startup was overcounting its sales commissions.
A Phia spokesperson previously told The Post: “Any features causing misattributions were immediately removed over a month ago on July 7. We are reviewing every transaction, we are fully committed to and have already begun issuing all transaction reversals to brand partners as a result of any misattribution, and we are hiring a head of compliance to make sure something like this never happens again.
“We are now continuing to connect our users with items and offers from thousands of brand partners,” the spokesperson added. “We will learn from this and want to ensure our users have the best possible shopping experience, with features like our new digital closet and more to come.”
The startup – which raised a jaw-dropping $30 million in 2025 from backers including Hailey Bieber, Kris Jenner and Spanx founder Sara Blakely – operates as a browser extension.
Customers shopping at online retail affiliates can click on the Phia icon at checkout to scan the internet for any available discount codes.
When a shopper uses Phia by selecting one of its coupon codes at checkout, the software drops a “cookie” – which tracks activity across the web – to show the retailer it helped drive the sale and earn itself a commission.
But Kianni and Gates’ startup was allegedly dropping cookies into the checkout process even when customers were not using Phia for coupons, meaning it was taking credit for sales it had nothing to do with, according to Bloomberg.
The cookie stuffing traced back to at least December across sales at several major retailers, including Nike, Gap and Nordstrom, and seemingly made up the vast majority of Phia’s revenue, the report said.
During her time at Stanford, Gates allegedly took several courses that helped her brainstorm Phia, including an artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship class – and she also once belonged to a secretive, invite-only class called “So You Think You Can Rule the World?”
A hand-picked group of just 12 students enter the secret society, where they study how power works and how to “hack” it, The Post reported, citing information from a former student.
The unofficial 10-week course – which is not publicized and has no enrollment code – meets weekly to debate money, power and “the underlying incentive structures and frameworks that govern how the world works,” according to The Stanford Daily.
