Phoebe Gates, the youngest daughter of Bill and Melinda French Gates, is offering a refreshingly honest glimpse into the pressures of growing up in the public eye.

In a recent podcast, the 22-year-old opened up about her insecurities surrounding the “nepo baby” label and the challenges of forging her own path. 

During a candid chat on her new podcast, The Burnouts, which she co-hosts with friend and business partner Sophia Kianni, Phoebe delved into her experiences at Stanford University. 

“I had so much insecurity and, like, such a desire to prove myself,” she shared, adding: “I was like, I have so much privilege. I’m a nepo baby. 

“I had so much insecurity around that. I feel it’s so hard when you’re a freshman in college because you have no experience. You have nothing.” 

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Phoebe, who studied Human Biology and graduated last year, also discussed her parents’ initial reaction to her entrepreneurial ambitions. 

She and Sophia recently launched Phia, a sustainable fashion platform, and when Phoebe first shared her plans, her parents were “really cautious”. 

“‘Are you sure you wanna do this?’ ” she recalled her father asking. “Both of my siblings were incredibly intelligent and took very typical career paths. 

“My brother’s a genius, my sister has two kids and a horse-back riding career and is in residency [as a junior paediatrician] – but there wasn’t this adverse risk of failure.”

Despite their reservations, Bill and Melinda insisted that Phoebe complete her degree first, a point she acknowledges is “so funny” given her father’s own well-known decision to drop out of Harvard University to pursue Microsoft.

She added: “So my parents were really cautious when I was like, ‘I want to do Stanford abroad and do this remotely and finish up my degree and do the start-up.’ 

“They were very much like, ”You need to finish your degree. You don’t just get to drop out and [start] a company.’ Which is so funny because my dad literally did that – that’s like the reason I’m able to go to Stanford, have my tuition paid.” 

Bill and Melissa

The former couple share kids Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe. They tied the knot in 1994, and were married for 27 years until they announced their split in 2021 after they quietly separated during the COVID pandemic.

Earlier this year, Bill confessed he made many “mistakes” in his life – but his biggest “regret” is his divorce from his ex-wife Melissa.

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“That was the mistake I most regret,” he told The Times. “There is a certain wonderfulness to spending your entire adult life with one person because of the memories and depth of things you have done and having kids together,” he continued. 

“When Melinda and I met, I was fairly successful but not ridiculously successful – that came during the time that we were together. So, she saw me through a lot. 

“When we got divorced it was tough and then she made the decision to leave the foundation – I was disappointed that she took the option to go off,” he added, referring to the Bates Foundation, which she co-founded with her former spouse. 

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Admitting their divorce is his only “failure” that “matters,” he said: “You would have to put that at the top of the list. There are others but none that matter. The divorce thing was miserable for me and Melinda for at least two years.” 

While their split may have made them both “miserable,” Melinda is grateful that they were able to have a private breakup. 

“It gave us the privacy to do what needed to be done in private,” she told Time in June 2024 about going through their split during the pandemic. 

“Getting a divorce is a horrible thing. It’s just painful. It’s awful when you realize you need one,” she added, before clarifying that divorce is a “hard thing” not a “horrible thing”.