22-year-old Phoebe Gates, the youngest daughter of Bill and Melinda Gates and a Stanford student, took the lid off of some personal and familial details, including her father’s health condition.
It was during her appearance on Alex Cooper’s podcast, Call Her Daddy, that she accidentally disclosed this detail despite Bill Gates never sharing this new health revelation to the public himself.
How it came up
It first started when Cooper asked Pheobe about her experience with bringing home guys to meet her dad.
“For the guy, terrifying. For me, it’s hilarious because my dad’s pretty socially awkward,” she explained.
Then she dropped the bomb
“Like he’s said before, he has Asperger’s. So, like to me, it’s so funny,” Phoebe said, except for the fact that Bill Gates never disclosed such a detail to the public.
However, he did say that he believes he’d be diagnosed with autism if he were a child today.
What is that syndrome?
Asperger syndrome, according to WebMD, “is a term sometimes used to describe a developmental disorder that’s part of the autism spectrum disorder (ASD).”
People with Asperger’s are less likely to have learning disabilities and more likely to have a very specific routine and an average or above-average level of intelligence.
But doctors don’t diagnose people with it anymore
The NHS confirmed that doctors no longer diagnose people with Asperger’s Syndrome, as it’s now thought of as part of the ASD.
Doctors sometimes classify it as a “high-functioning” type of ASD, meaning its symptoms are not as severe as other types of ASD.
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He did throw hints in his memoir
In his memoir released earlier this year, Source Code: My Beginnings, Bill Gates wrote: “During my childhood, the fact that some people’s brains process information differently from others wasn’t widely understood.”
“My parents had no guideposts or textbooks to help them grasp why their son became so obsessed with certain projects, missed social cues, and could be rude and inappropriate without seeming to notice his effect on others,” he explained.
And someone suggested that he might have it
When somebody suggested to him that he might have autism, he said, as reported by Axios: “I remember thinking, ‘What the h**l? What the h**l? I run a godd**n company.’ And then I realized, well, actually, it’s probably true. I mean, the spectrum thing is confusing.”
So while Pheobe might have let this information unintentionally slip, it adds to the intrigue behind Bill Gates and his journey.
