AequitasPhoebe Gates wants her $185 million AI startup to succeed with 'no ties to my privilege or my last name': 'I have a chip on my shoulder' | Fortune
Phoebe Gates cofounded Phia, an AI shopping assistant, with her Stanford University roommate Sophia Kianni. The shopping assistant plugs into browsers like Chrome and Safari to compare prices and surface deals across tens of thousands of retail and resale sites in real time. It essentially serves as your own personal deal finder: say you’re looking at a $200 dress from Anthropologie, Phia can find and compare prices at second-hand sellers to help customers find a better price.
That’s actually a neat premise. Fashion isn’t my cup of tea, but otherwise that sounds useful (albeit not very unique; shopping assistants are a dime a dozen).
digitalFattehSo it’s a price checker extension. That scrapes other websites for better deals.
I feel like this is just a plug piece to spotlight her product tbh.
SternThey just slap the word AI on it so investors pp’s become the big pp.
My little brother works for a supply company, and of the companies they supply has a new ‘AI’ tool where folks type in the thing they want and it pulls from other companies to find the lowest price, then color codes it and shit. The supply companies have to put their prices in a database for the ‘AI’. All I could think hearing about it is that some C level got absolutely fucking bamboozled.