'Get up or get out': Billionaire Melinda French Gates told youngest daughter Phoebe after frustrating motherhood questions from investors

While pitching their fashion pricing startup Phia, founders Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni faced repeated questions from investors about how having children might affect their business. "We’ll have investors ask us all the time, ‘Well, what happens when you two go have babies?’" Phoebe, said on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast.

The 22-year-old entrepreneur described the assumptions as frustrating and emotionally taxing, according to Fortune.

She added that the pressure stemmed from a belief that women would eventually leave their careers for family. Investors, she said, assumed she would be "going to be around for 10 years" and then disappear.

Frustrated by the pressure, Phoebe once called her mother in tears. Melinda’s response: "Get up or get out the game."

Phoebe Gates and mother Melinda French Gates. Photo courtesy of Phoebe's Instagram

Sophia, her co-founder, recounted one investor asking what would happen to Phia if they became mothers. Her pointed reply: "What’s going to happen to your venture firm when you have kids?

Phoebe, 22, graduated early from Stanford University and is the youngest child of Melinda Gates and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who divorced in 2021 after nearly three decades of marriage.