Taylor Lorenz’s Power User
Taylor Lorenz’s Power User

[PATREON PREVIEW] Bill Gates Daughter's $43M Tech Scandal

July 20, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Phoebe Gates, the 22-year-old daughter of Bill Gates, co-founded a startup called FIA with her former Stanford roommate Sophia Chiani in April 2023. The company raised $43.5 million from top venture firms like Kleiner Perkins and celebrity investors including Sydney Sweeney, Chloe Kardashian, Hailey Bieber, and even Sheryl Sandberg. FIA marketed itself as an AI-powered shopping assistant—"Google Flights, but for fashion"—using a browser extension and app to compare prices across thousands of retailers. The app took off, with over 1.2 million downloads in the past year. But security researchers soon found that FIA was secretly logging users' full web history, including sensitive data like bank statements and private emails, transmitting it back to its servers. After media coverage, FIA stopped capturing full webpage content and switched to tracking only URLs. Now, a new investigation by Ben Edelman, a Harvard-trained researcher and internet law expert, alleges that FIA has been engaging in a form of fraud called "cookie stuffing"—silently inserting affiliate tracking codes onto retailers' websites to claim credit for sales it didn't drive. Bloomberg independently tested and confirmed that FIA's browser extension opens a hidden background tab during the final stages of a purchase on over 50 major retailers' sites, including Zara, Walmart, and Nike. The tab loads FIA's affiliate l

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:05) **The Suspicious "Bug"** - The episode opens by framing FIA’s alleged fraud as an "awfully convenient bug" that the company brazenly benefits from.
  • 2 (00:19) **The Rise of Phoebe Gates and FIA** - Background on the startup: founded by Bill Gates' 22-year-old daughter and her Stanford roommate, raising $43.5 million from top VCs and celebrity investors like Sydney Sweeney, Chloe Kardashian, and Hailey Bieber.
  • 3 (00:52) **FIA's Pitch: "Google Flights for Fashion"** - The company marketed itself as an AI-powered shopping assistant that compares prices and finds deals, quickly gaining 1.2 million downloads.
  • 4 (01:41) **First Red Flag: Secret Web History Logging** - Security researchers discovered FIA was secretly capturing full webpage content, including sensitive data like bank statements. FIA claimed it was to identify retailers, then stopped capturing full pages after media scrutiny.
  • 5 (02:24) **Ben Edelman Enters the Scene** - Introduction of Ben Edelman, a legendary internet investigator with a background in economics, law, and software engineering, who published a bombshell report on FIA.
  • 6 (02:59) **The Core Allegation: Affiliate Fraud via "Cookie Stuffing"** - Edelman’s report claims FIA was committing fraud by secretly injecting its affiliate tracking cookies into users' browsers during purchases it didn't drive.
  • 7 (03:14) **Bloomberg Confirms the Secret Tab** - Bloomberg tested the claims and found FIA’s browser extension opened a hidden background tab to set its affiliate cookie on over 50 major retailers (Zara, Walmart, Nike) during the final checkout stage.

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Guests on this episode

Phoebe Gates

Show Notes

To listen to this and other bonus episodes, buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at https://www.usermag.co or support my work on Patreon: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz.

Affiliate marketing is one of the biggest industries on the internet, and according to researcher Ben Edelman, one of Silicon Valley’s hottest AI startups may have been abusing it.

In this bonus episode of Power User I sat down with Edelman to break down what’s happening with Phia, the shopping startup co-founded by Phoebe Gates that has raised over $43 million from famed Silicon Valley investors like Kleiner Perkins Sheryl Sandberg, along with a slew of celebrities including Sydney Sweeney, Khloe Kardashian and Hailey Bieber.

We break down allegations that Phia’s browser extension secretly inserted affiliate tracking codes, how this compares to the Honey controversy, why retailers could have lost millions, and what this means for the future of AI-powered shopping.

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