• Melinda Gates refuses to invest in daughter Phoebe’s startup, encouraging her to secure funding independently.
• Phoebe has raised over $500,000 on her own for her digital fashion company, Phia.
• Both Melinda and Bill Gates want their children to build their own paths, limiting inheritance to less than 1% of their fortune.

At first glance, it might seem surprising. A billionaire mother with a $31 billion fortune decides not to invest in her own daughter’s new business. But Melinda French Gates, 60, made it crystal clear: she’s not putting any money into her daughter’s startup. And that’s not because she doesn’t believe in her — quite the opposite.

Speaking at the Power of Women’s Sports Summit alongside tennis legend Billie Jean King, Melinda shared a personal and pointed message about the importance of building something real — without relying on family wealth. Her youngest daughter, Phoebe Gates, 22, recently launched her own tech company, and while Melinda is undoubtedly proud, she’s letting Phoebe go it alone.

“I have a daughter who just started a business this year. She got capitalised, not because of my contacts, not because of me,” Melinda said bluntly. “I wouldn’t put money into it.”

The room went quiet. You could almost hear the jaws drop.

A Lesson in Tough Love

For many parents, especially those with deep pockets, it might seem natural — even expected — to step in and give their child a financial boost. But Melinda’s refusal isn’t about holding back. It’s about allowing her daughter to face the real world, to understand what it takes to earn respect and funding on merit alone.

“It’s very, very hard to get your business funded if you’re a woman,” Melinda added. “You have to learn how to play the game, and you have to stick with it.”

Melinda didn’t name Phoebe directly during the conversation, but the clues were obvious. Phoebe, who graduated from Stanford in 2024, recently co-founded Phia, a digital fashion platform designed to make online shopping easier by comparing clothing prices across tens of thousands of sites. She started the company with her college friend Sophia Kianni, an environmental activist and entrepreneur in her own right.

What’s interesting is that Phoebe seems completely on board with her mother’s decision.

“We don’t want this to be something funded by my family — we want it to be a real company,” she said in a previous interview. “While I have a ton of privilege coming from my family, it’s about having a product that stands on its own.”

That mindset speaks volumes. Despite having the Gates name, Phoebe is consciously stepping into the arena as an entrepreneur, not as a legacy kid.

Rejection Is Part of the Game

Melinda says she told her daughter that if her idea truly has value, investors will back it — and if not, the experience of rejection will be just as valuable.

“She’s growing from this,” Melinda said.

That single sentence reveals everything about the kind of mother Melinda wants to be — not one who shields her daughter from difficulty, but one who supports her through it.

The billionaire philanthropist has long been vocal about the barriers women face in business, especially in the male-dominated world of venture capital. Fewer than 3% of VC dollars go to companies founded by women, and the numbers are even more dismal when it comes to women of color. So Phoebe’s challenge isn’t just personal — it’s part of a much bigger problem.

Still, she’s managed to raise over $500,000 in capital from investors, all on her own.

Bill Gates Also Stepped Back

Earlier this year, Phoebe’s father, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, echoed a similar sentiment in a New York Times interview. He admitted he thought she’d come to him for money when she was starting her business. He even said he would’ve been happy to help — but admitted that any help from him would’ve come with strings.

“I would have kept her on a short leash and been doing business reviews, which I would have found tricky,” he said. “I probably would have been overly nice, but I wondered if it was the right thing to do. Luckily, it never happened.”

His relief was palpable. Clearly, both parents agree: this is Phoebe’s journey to make.

The Gates children — Jennifer, 30; Rory, 25; and Phoebe — have known from a young age that they wouldn’t inherit the massive family fortune. Both Bill and Melinda have publicly stated their kids will receive a tiny fraction of their wealth, reportedly less than 1%. Their belief? Let the kids build something of their own.

A New Generation of Gates

Phoebe’s company, Phia, is still in its early stages, but she’s already turning heads. Not just because of her family name, but because she’s trying to build something relevant in the evolving space where fashion, tech, and sustainability collide.

Whether or not Phia becomes the next big thing, the journey itself is shaping Phoebe into the kind of entrepreneur the world needs more of — grounded, determined, and ready to prove herself without leaning on inherited wealth.

And that, perhaps, is the real legacy Bill and Melinda Gates are passing on.

They may not fund their children’s dreams directly, but they’ve given them something just as powerful: the courage to try, the resilience to fail, and the wisdom to keep going.

In a world where wealth often pads the fall, the Gates kids — especially Phoebe — are showing that sometimes, it’s the fall that teaches you how to fly.