Bill Gates' daughter reportedly took secret Stanford class on 'how to rule the world'
New reports have revealed that Phoebe Gates, daughter to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, took a 'secret' and exclusive class at Stanford Unviersity that taught her 'how to rule the world' and 'identify vulnerabilities' in systems of power.
It's no secret that many of the world's most powerful people already come from influential families, and that can often give you access to certain connections and get you to places you might otherwise not even know existed.
While the business acumen of Phoebe Gates has recently been called into question, as her AI shopping startup Phia has been accused of 'cookie stuffing' affiliate sales, she might just be qualified to rule the world if her participation in one particular class is anything to go by.
That revelation came alongside a number of admissions from her former classmates at the prestigious university, and some doubted her ability to lead the startup that has since been valued at around $185 million.
Phoebe Gates' secret Stanford class explained
As revealed by the New York Post, Gates was one of the 12 individuals – six men and six women – to take part in the yearly invitation-only class at Stanford, with its official name being 'Rule'.
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It's been around for a number of years, having been founded by Justin Lewis-Weber in his junior year, which is likely around eight years ago, and despite its limited membership it's expected that past members have a collective net worth in the billions.
Gates, as indicated by The Stanford Daily, seemingly conducted internal recruiting for Phia through the exclusive class, showing that it's not just a means of obtaining information or skills but powerful connections too.
As to what the class actually teaches you, one former student claimed that its purpose is to show "how to essentially hack any kind of power structure or bureaucratic structure to get what they want in a system of people."
Across its 10 weeks of teaching, students are expecting to learn about "the underlying incentive structures and frameworks that govern how the world works," according to its founder, with Lewis-Weber illustrating that "it ends up being an effort to understand what the world and the overall chessboard that people are playing on."
What else did her Stanford classmates say about her?
While Gates' participation in the secret class might have given her a leg up in society and the tools necessary to 'rule the world', some of her former classmates aren't particularly convinced by her ability to thrive in the tech world.
Reported by Page Six, one former classmate claimed that she did not take any advanced coding classes alongside her human biology degree as it wasn't explicitly required, which is rather unexpected for someone looking to lead a tech startup, especially as the daughter of Bill Gates.
"Phoebe herself did not have to take a single computer science class," the source indicated. "She could have taken classes that involved understanding how computer science works, but it would have been very much around biology research — if she even took those classes."
Some even 'laughed in their faces' when Gates announced her plans for Phia alongside Sophia Kianni, her former Stanford roommate, who also reportedly abstained from any computer science courses and "wouldn't know what a cookie was" according to another classmate.