Prince Harry is becoming a Silicon Valley tech bro. I’ve heard he has lots of transferable skills
The prince-in-exile promises to bring a lot of bright ideas to the table
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Your support makes all the difference.The road to becoming a tech executive usually starts with a background in product, engineering or software. Or it can start at Buckingham Palace, as evidenced by Prince Harry’s recent elevation to Chief Impact Officer (CIO) at BetterUp, a Silicon Valley-based company that promotes mental health. It’s a new experience for Harry: finally a job title that isn’t based on a random assignment from Grandma. But will he thrive? Or will he become another California burnout story?
In the Bay Area, Harry will be a long way from home and well outside his comfort zone — and so some culture shock will be inevitable. I imagine he will settle in just fine once he gets past his initial surprise that in Silicon Valley there’s free food foreveryone — not just the royals — and the California taxpayer isn’t even billed.
Although he’s not the typical tech executive, Harry actually fits the mold pretty well: he already knows what it’s like to be a rich male from a privileged background, after all, and his college grades reportedly left something to be desired. Such traits imply he’ll fit in fine among overpaid twentysomething Harvard dropouts who are constantly told by white male financial backers that they’re “the next big thing” (many of whom will also end up on Netflix, either as the producers or the subjects of many a fascinating documentary!) However, any claims that being ginger helped him satisfy Silicon Valley’s push for diversity, equity and inclusion do seem a little dubious.
The prince brings a lot of transferable skills to the role: he’s skilled at publicity, crisis management and at attending events that require copious waving. But the most value Harry adds lies in distribution: he can provide access to the people who are probably in most need of mental health coaching, such as Commonwealth countries still trying to navigate the fallout from being colonized and subjugated; and the royal family itself, an archaic symbol of obscene inequality that still hasn’t grasped that it’s not fit for purpose.
Harry’s new role will cover product strategy — and I’ve heard he’s already starting to make recommendations to improve the BetterUp offering. In particular, he’s pushing to add the below functions:
• Spin the Globe - Randomly pick a country to pay for your security
• Rainbows and Unicorns - Automatically activated every eight hours to coincide with frequency of mass shootings in the US and drown out the news alerts for the more sensitive among us (not necessary for members of the NRA)
• It was Kate - A text message template that automatically blames Kate Middleton anytime you’re crying
• STFU (Shut The Farage Up) - Boosts mental health by cleansing your timeline of any references to Nigel Farage
• Just Say No - A way to stop people taking advantage of you by saying no. Also a way to rebuff India’s claims for the Kohi-Noor diamond which currently sits in the Crown Jewels after it was stolen from their country
If he succeeds in getting these ideas into BetterUp’s app, we’ll know that Harry has gone full tech titan. At that point, what else will the prince-in-exile do in his new incarnation as Duke of Silicon Valley? His new peers Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are trying to conquer space, so getting in on that seems like the wisest move. Colonizing the moon could be a great idea, especially considering Brexit Britain is pretty desperate for trading partners right now, and there’s no one to disagree on that vast expanse of rock yet.
Getting a completely nonsensical but impressive-sounding Brexit deal like that may help Harry restore his battered image in Britain’s tabloids. And if the deal goes belly-up, then tabloid editors will have a new minority group to chastise: the moon-people. Either way, it’s a win.
Since nepotism is so deeply ingrained in the royal family, it’s only a matter of time before baby Archie starts turning up to work in the Bay Area as another CIO: a Child Impact Officer. We can expect that he will probably demand payment in cryptocurrency, which will be a savvy move — especially if he uses Dogecoin. That paired with his father’s Brexit initiative will give a whole new meaning to “take me to the moon” and thrill seasoned tech bros, who famously love a bad pun, in the process.
Here’s to hoping that cryptocurrency can also be used to make reparations to the countries Britain colonized as well. If Harry is as woke as he claims to be, that’ll be achieved long before Elon and his other billionaire friends decamp to Mars.
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