{
  "id": 2418957,
  "title": "Phoebe Gates took a secret Stanford class on how to ‘rule the world’—and reportedly recruited employees for her startup accused of wire fraud",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/21/phoebe-gates-took-a-secret-stanford-class-on-how-to-rule-the-world",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-08-21T18:04:23.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Fortune",
    "slug": "fortune",
    "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/08/21/phoebe-gates-secret-stanford-class-how-to-rule-the-world-wire-fraud/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Phoebe Gates, daughter of tech billionaire Bill Gates, started an AI personal shopping assistant company called Phia while a Stanford University student. Before founding Phia, Gates attended a secret course titled \"Rule\" taught by Stanford grad Justin Lewis-Weber. The course taught students how to manipulate power structures and take advantage of others in a system. After graduation, Gates used her connections to recruit employees for Phia. The company now faces accusations of cookie stuffing, a fraudulent practice that accounted for over half of its revenue in June. Phia initially raised $8 million in seed funding and later raised $35 million in Series A funding. The company denies the allegations and claims they removed the fraudulent features over a month ago.",
  "summary": "An off-the-record university course helped Gates recruit for Phia, and former students claim the class taught a ruthless hunger for profit.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}