Phia’s co-founders, Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, pushed for the features that let the shopping app claim affiliate commissions on purchases it played no part in, and knew about them from at least December, according to internal Slack messages and people familiar with the matter, reported by Olivia Solon, Priyanjana Bengani, and Jeff Kao at Bloomberg. The company told Bloomberg in July that it had discovered the problem 24 hours earlier and blamed a software bug. That bug was a remotely toggled feature, live from December 10 until July 7, and a Phia data scientist estimated it accounted for roughly 51% of the June sales the company took credit for. Phia says that estimate used flawed methodology, and that it is reversing transactions and hiring a compliance head.
