Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, multi-billionaire and philanthropist, has agreed to help his daughter with her start-up. But the way in which he has helped her has tended to surprise many.
In recent years, Bill Gates has been busier distributing his billions of dollars to humanitarian organisations than working in tech companies. It has to be said that by co-founding Microsoft, he made a major contribution to the development of Silicon Valley.
But Bill Gates knows how to make exceptions, especially for his children. After all, they can’t count on their daddy’s fortune, so he can give them a hand with their businesses. In this case, it was his daughter Phoebe Gates who received help from her wealthy father, but not necessarily in the way you might think.
Bill Gates, luxury client advisor
Phoebe Gates is Bill Gates’ youngest daughter. She recently founded Phia with Sophia Kianni, a former Stanford classmate. Phia is a start-up that is developing an application and a Chrome extension that scans over 40,000 websites to find the best deals, promote second-hand shopping and steer people towards more sustainable alternatives. A sort of “fashion booking”, as some foreign media have described it. It’s a useful idea that’s right up there with the times, but it certainly deserved a spotlight, and Bill Gates has provided it.
And how did he do it? Quite simply by taking on the job of Phia’s customer advisor for a day. “When your daughter asks you if you’d be willing to work in customer service at her start-up, the only good answer is yes,” he explained in a lengthy LinkedIn post published last week, in which he announced his intention to work in the start-up’s customer support department for a day. “Hopefully, I won’t break anything,” he added.
Since then, the experiment has taken place, but ultimately that’s not the most important thing. Admittedly, some Phia users may have spoken to Bill Gates that day, but the main thing to remember is the publicity coup for the start-up. And not only that…
Bill Gates’ subtle lesson to entrepreneurs
While Bill Gates’ main aim with this initiative is to promote his daughter’s company, he is also taking the opportunity to send out a message: “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how technology can make systems more efficient, fairer and more accessible. But over the years, I’ve learned that the best way to understand how something works – or where it’s going wrong – is to go directly to the people who use it.”
In short, Bill Gates is inviting entrepreneurs to get their hands dirty and meet the users of their services. In short, to put themselves on the front line… without necessarily filming themselves doing it!
