Is Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex any good at ping pong? Or air hockey?
These are severe questions we want a solution to now that the world has discovered that he reportedly does “zero things” at his job at billion-dollar start-up BetterUp.
The most blatant conclusion is that if the chap just isn’t driving up the inventory value or refilling the toner, then his greatest contribution to the business, other than being a publicity magnet, must be as an ever-ready ping-pong opponent, completely poised to accomplice any staffers who want an influence break and a fast hit.
Recent months have seen Harry and spouse Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex’s relationship with Spotify and Netflix come underneath hearth and now, the duke’s day job with BetterUp has too.
Over the weekend, a brand new report laid naked the allegedly poisonous interior workings of the Silicon Valley darling which employed Aitch again in 2021 as its Chief Impact Officer, a type of nebulous, means-nothing titles that tech bros appear to like as a lot as gray hoodies, Soylent and secretly huffing white board markers.
In a narrative entitled “How Prince Harry’s $5 Billion Start-up Went South”, the Daily Beast has detailed the “grim mood” inside the corporate, with staffers having beforehand “staged a revolt” – and the place current months have seen “outbursts from executives, mysterious staff departures, and declining morale”.
“There was a lot of f**kery going on,” as one former staffer put it.
Now, with the corporate having laid off 16 per cent of its workforce (with the Daily Mail reporting this interprets to 100 folks), former staffers have turned on Harry The Employee, making him out to be about as helpful an addition as Princess Anne on spring break in Cabo.
According to the Beast, with regards to what the duke’s “day-to-day responsibilities” really are, one worker responded with: “I’m going to go with zero things” – a press release that was “mirrored” by different staffers.
Another current worker mentioned of the corporate hiring Harry, “At first I was like, ‘This is cool’” – nonetheless, they went on to say that in truth, “it’s been more of a distraction”.
“Every article mentions his role at BetterUp, then goes on to roast [him and Meghan Markle] … the juice isn’t worth the squeeze,” they mentioned.
And what may Harry earn from his busy roster of “zero things”? According to the Mail, the duke takes residence a seven-figure wage for his BetterUp gig.
And similar to that, we’re again right here once more, for the third time in as many months, with one other deal and one other firm that has forked out a fortune to enroll Harry and Meghan being known as out.
The duke and duchess are more and more trying just like the NFTs of company America, a fad that folks rushed to pile into, threw hundreds of thousands at and giddily ballyhooed their genius, solely to reap probably the most minimal return on funding.
In 1720, the South Sea Bubble was the world’s first actual market crash; in 2023, it’s the Sussex Bubble that appears to be bursting.
In retrospect, it’s extremely unlucky that the duchess selected to put on a $5310 lemon Oscar de la Renta gown in 2021 for a promotional Spotify video, provided that’s largely what the Sussexes’ careers are trying like.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal not too long ago reported that Netflix is not going to renew their contract when it runs out, and The Sun quoted a supply saying of their relationship with the streamer, “The feeling is that the lemon has been fully squeezed”.
(Which I feel makes the Duke and Duchess of Sussex the citron pressé of Hollywood).
Now, this week, we’ve gotten this BetterUp report and the declare that Harry earns hundreds of thousands for doing what appears like diddly-squat. (Well, possibly diddly-squat plus his ping-pong experience).
Nearly three years on since Harry and Meghan started their contract gold rush, what is evident is that after they signed all their big-budget, big-smiles and big-fanfare offers, they have been on the apogee of their fame. They have been indisputably a potent and thrilling new addition to the Hollywood firmament. Which stonkingly giant firm with an related stonkingly giant advertising and marketing price range greater than the GDP of Paraguay wouldn’t wish to wangle the duke and duchess on board?
After all, with the ability to put the Sussex title and their titles on an organization letterhead would robotically set off world media protection of the type that the majority firms solely get when their tanker runs aground in Nova Scotia and kills a child penguin colony.
I suppose they have been a bit just like the Berlin Wall or the medieval market in relics: Everyone wished a chunk of them, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley darlings to leisure giants.
But right here’s the bit within the montage the place a breeze ruffles the pages of a diary and we fast-forward to immediately, when issues are trying more and more bitter for the duke and duchess.
While they’ve notched up some spectacular wins, reminiscent of Harry & Meghan hitting primary and changing into the largest nonfiction debut on the platform, and Spare rocketing into the stratosphere to turn out to be the biggest-selling nonfiction ebook in historical past, these usually are not successes they will replicate.
With their properly of royal reality bled dry and their vein of grievances and resentments having basically been strip-mined, going ahead, it’s trying just like the Sussexes are one thing of dud hires.
Their non-royal baiting content material concepts sound really ridiculous and giggle-worthy, with Harry allegedly pitching the idea of interviewing Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump about their childhood hurts and questioning if the Pope may spare him any time.
Together, they’ve additionally reportedly been engaged on a Great Expectations prequel targeted on reframing Miss Havisham as “a strong woman living in a patriarchal society”, which resembles some undergrad claptrap of the very best order.
This weekend, it was reported that they’d purchased the rights to best-selling ebook Meet Me At The Lake, which is concerning the trauma of a mother or father dying in a automobile crash, psychological well being and postnatal melancholy. Fresh concepts, like artificial fibres and cow’s milk, would appear to be in very brief provide in Montecito.
Nor have the duke and duchess been incomes any plaudits for displaying peppy attitudes and eagerness to please.
In June, the couple and Spotify parted methods, with an trade supply telling Page Six that the duo “have come off as being lazy and difficult”. Elsewhere, The Sun has reported that Netflix “bosses are said to now feel Meghan ‘lives in her own bubble’ and does not seem to have ‘grasped the economic reality’.”
The multi, multimillion-dollar query is, the place the hell do the Sussexes go from right here?
And when you, me and Ari Emanuel, Meghan’s new tremendous agent, ponder what may come subsequent for the duke and duchess, take into account this.
The Times’ Valentine Low writes in his wonderful and impeccably reported Courtiers that again when the duke and duchess have been nonetheless on the royal roster, “So bad did things eventually become that Harry and Meghan’s team would later refer to themselves as the Sussex Survivors’ Club”.
Maybe it’s about now that somebody in California ought to take into account beginning up a Sussex Investors’ Club.
Daniela Elser is a author, editor and a royal commentator with greater than 15 years’ expertise working with plenty of Australia’s main media titles.
Source: www.news.com.au
