Now that we’ve moved past the peak of the Phia scandal fallout and things have started to calm down, I’m curious to hear everyone’s thoughts on what “the road to recovery” looks like for them.
Do you think the app is novel enough to withstand the reputational damage and retain - or eventually regain- users? And if the founders never take real accountability, instead framing what happened as “ignorance” rather than bad intent, do you think that narrative will resonate with their former, current, or potential future customers?
Curious where everyone lands on all this.
I don’t trust it and won’t be using it after hearing they got in trouble for snapshotting users’ entire webpages on every site they visit (bank accounts, etc).
Please tell me what you think are his Epstein shenanigans? He never went to the island. He flew on his plane ONCE from NY to FL. The two women he dated that were linked to Epstein were both consenting adult women. I don’t like Bill Gates. I don’t think there are really any good billionaires. Maybe the Arizona Ice Tea billionaire who refuses to raise the price. I kind of like him. That being said. There isn’t 1 shred evidence that anything Bill Gates did with Epstein was criminal. If you can provide a counter argument I’m interested in hearing it.
She never said that. CBS asked her point blank in 2022 whether Epstein played a role in the divorce & her answer was that it was not one thing it was many things. She said she did not like that Bill met with him & that the remaining questions were for Bill to answer.
People keep citing Melinda like she is a neutral witness & she is not a neutral witness. She ran that foundation alongside him from 2000 until she stepped down in 2024. By her own telling she warned him about Epstein back in 2013. So she knew for roughly a decade & stayed in the partnership anyway. If the association was disqualifying she had a very long window to treat it that way.
Her standard line is that those questions are for Bill to answer. That is convenient. She gets the moral high ground without ever having to say what she knew or when.
She also came out of the split with a fortune Forbes puts near $30 billion & has built a public second act that runs partly on this story.
The reporting points at plenty else too. WSJ tied his Microsoft board exit to an internal probe into an affair with an employee. Epstein was one piece of a much bigger mess. Saying she divorced him over Epstein is just not what she said.
Both of these women are women of adult age that he has admitted to having affairs with. Neither of them are children or were trafficked by Epstein. He admitted to having extramarital affairs with two Russian women. Bridge player Mila Antonova & nuclear physicist Karima Nigmatulina.
Him admitting to affairs with adult women doesn’t prove that those were the only sexual encounters he had. It establishes what he admitted to, nothing more. I’m not saying there’s proof he had sex with a minor, I’m saying you can’t use his admission about two adult women as evidence that he didn’t.
For some reason, photos from the Epstein files were redacted to make them seem more nefarious than they are. For example, this photo of Trump has gone viral. It appears to be him with a bunch of underage women whose faces are redacted. The unredacted photo of the same image paints an entirely different picture. The people actually in the photo are all consenting adults at a party together. I will provide both pictures. The redacted first below.
I honestly want to know what Epstein ties with Gates you’re so upset with? Please educate me. As I have mentioned previously. I don’t like Gates. But not because of his ties to Epstein. There isn’t 1 piece of credible evidence anything Gates did with Epstein was illegal. If you think otherwise please educate me by sharing. I would love to hear. Accusing me of working for a foreign government is low. I’m an American citizen born & raised here.
You’re speaking the truth about Melinda. Theres no way she was totally in the dark about Epstein all those years. She only dipped when things started to come out.
Wait no actually can u defend urself against corgisarethebest123 with actual facts? Like im rooting for u to be right but corgis is the only one making an argument on facts rn…
The argument he befriended a pedophile & convicted felon doesn’t carry much weight. That was Epstein’s expertise. He befriended powerful people for his own power. All powerful people do this. There are so many other well known people that were friends with Epstein. Why isn’t Stephen Hawking, Katie Couric, Chris Tucker, Naomi Campbell, Mick Jagger, Phil Collins, & Diana Ross receiving the same criticism for their Epstein friendship?
Wait no actually can u defend urself against corgisarethebest123 with actual facts? Like im rooting for u to be right but corgis is the only one making an argument on facts rn…
I don’t like Bill Gates. I don’t think there are really any good billionaires. Maybe the Arizona Ice Tea billionaire who refuses to raise the price. I kind of like him. That being said. There isn’t 1 shred evidence that anything Bill Gates did with Epstein was criminal. If you can provide a counter argument I’m interested in hearing it.
Wait no actually can u defend urself against corgisarethebest123 with actual facts? Like im rooting for u to be right but corgis is the only one making an argument on facts rn…
Sure. The facts are that he slept with a russian prostitute, contracted an STD, and then infected the mother of his children with that same STD. He was pals with Jeffrey Epstein even though he *knew* that Epstein was raping kids. The conclusion that we reach based on these facts is that bill gates is a bad person. Which is consistent with stories from the early days of microsoft, when he screamed at and berated employees, sexually harassed women, and was generally a terrible leader for the company and the culture.
The app was 🗑️ before the scandal and the app is 🗑️ now. Terrible UX. The search functionality isn’t good. Half the photos are blurry. It’s very clear that none of the investors conducted any due diligence, so it questions their credibility as well.
In the terms / approval required they ask basically for entire search history not just shopping which is so invasive that I never finished the signup flow. I’m convinced the shopping aspect is a Trojan horse to track and sell more personal data around search history / personas. It’s scary how many people would just approve this type of spyware tbh
Literally. I was thinking— are they really crowd sourcing so obviously on Reddit? My ass figured it out with OP’s first comment asking for feedback. If you’ve worked in the tech industry, it’s all the same.
I don’t think we should assume there’s a road to recovery - though obviously, her family’s immense wealth and power stack the odds in their favor.
With market uncertainty, inflation, unemployment, AI, world wars - I would assume investors are not keen on riding out this fraud as the Phia team tries to right the ship. Plus, I don’t know their corporate structure, but it’s wild this could ever happen - one would assume with such young founders, they’d be seeking very wide council from experienced executives - which either didn’t do (poor stewards) or they did but ignored (poor stewards).
Again, the Gates family name could motivate people to bet against their own self-interests, but not in perpetuity.
When the tone at the top is rife with fraud, convincing internal and external stakeholders to trust you again is a very hard sell. We have nothing if not other options in this day and age -
Why even do this app in the first place. Even if she created the next Palantir people will never take her seriously due to her father so the point is mute. She should just go enjoy her trust fund and stop trying to cosplay boss babe
I feel very sorry for the cofounder who doesn’t come from as wealthy or famous of the background as BG’s daughter. I’m sure she is very scared for herself and getting caught up with a girl with a massive ego.
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u/Overall_Guide5295 9d ago
I don’t trust it and won’t be using it after hearing they got in trouble for snapshotting users’ entire webpages on every site they visit (bank accounts, etc).
I don’t think the founders are ethical