Bill Gates' daughter Phoebe felt insecure about 'nepo baby' label in college: 'I had desire prove myself'

WASHINGTON DC: Phoebe Gates, the youngest daughter of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, opened up about her struggle with insecurity during her college years despite her wealthy background.

Now 22, Phoebe recalled her time at Stanford University, where she studied Human Biology, and how her family legacy affected her confidence as a student.

Phoebe Gates says 'I had so much insecurity' over being 'nepo baby' 

While speaking on her new podcast 'The Burnouts', which she co-hosts with close friend and business partner Sophia Kianni, 23, Phoebe Gates said she felt pressure to prove herself in college because of her status.

“I had so much insecurity and such a desire to prove myself at Stanford,” Phoebe said.

“I came in, I was like, ‘I'm so privileged, I'm a nepo baby,’ like 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,” she added, according to the Daily Mail.

Despite her father’s status, Phoebe admitted that she didn’t always receive support for her ideas or goals.

One of her early ventures—a pitch for Bluetooth tampons designed to provide health status updates—was rejected from a business class at Stanford. “This was our first big failure of many, many, many,” Phoebe said.

“I don't think it's really a shocker that we got flat-out rejected from this class—they asked us, ‘What problem does this solve? How would it make money?’ We couldn't answer those questions," she revealed.

Bill Gates questioned Phoebe Gates' plan to launch company

Phoebe Gates also spoke about how her father initially hesitated when she shared her plan to drop out of Stanford to pursue her debut company.

Even though Bill Gates famously dropped out of Harvard himself, he and Melinda Gates were against the idea, which she considered "funny."

“It wasn’t just my professors who doubted me,” Phoebe said on the podcast. “I remember even when we wanted to start the company, him being like, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’”

Phoebe, who is preparing to launch Phia, a digital fashion platform she describes as a “new way to shop”, also talked about feeling different from her siblings, Jennifer, 28, and Rory, 25.

“Because 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 horseback riding career and is in residency [as a Junior Pediatrician]—but there wasn’t this adverse risk of failure," Phoebe said.

Phoebe Gates shares why she doesn't dwell on setbacks

Phoebe Gates explained how she learned to embrace change and not be afraid of pivoting, even when her academic background didn’t line up with her entrepreneurial path.

"A lot of times, I think of things through the lens of there's no sunken cost,” Phoebe explained.

“It's easy to look back and think we study these different subjects, law, human biology, that now don't really necessarily relate exactly to what we're working on when it comes to fashion tech. And I think it's also important for people to realize you can always change direction."

"You can always immediately decide to do something completely different than what you're doing at that current moment," she said.

Phoebe is currently dating Arthur Donald, the grandson of Sir Paul McCartney, as she works toward launching her company with Kianni.