‘Juice isn’t worth the squeeze’: Employees claim Prince Harry paid millions to do nothing

Employees of a billion-dollar start-up that hired the Duke of Sussex are spitting chips, claiming he’s a “distraction” who isn’t “worth it”.

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Is Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex any good at ping pong? Or air hockey?

These are serious questions we need an answer to now that the world has learned that he reportedly does “zero things” at his job at billion-dollar start-up BetterUp.

The most obvious conclusion is that if the chap is not driving up the stock price or refilling the toner, then his biggest contribution to the business, aside from being a publicity magnet, would have to be as an ever-ready ping-pong opponent, permanently poised to partner any staffers who need a power break and a quick hit.

Recent months have seen Harry and wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex’s relationship with Spotify and Netflix come under fire and now, the duke’s day job with BetterUp has too.

Over the weekend, a new report laid bare the allegedly toxic inner workings of the Silicon Valley darling which hired Aitch back in 2021 as its Chief Impact Officer, one of those nebulous, means-nothing titles that tech bros seem to love as much as grey hoodies, Soylent and secretly huffing white board markers.

In a story entitled “How Prince Harry’s $5 Billion Start-up Went South”, the Daily Beast has detailed the “grim mood” inside the company, with staffers having previously “staged a revolt” – and where recent months have seen “outbursts from executives, mysterious staff departures, and declining morale”.

Prince Harry spoke about mental health at a BetterUp conference. Picture: Supplied

“There was a lot of f**kery going on,” as one former staffer put it.

Now, with the company having laid off 16 per cent of its workforce (with the Daily Mail reporting this translates to 100 people), former staffers have turned on Harry The Employee, making him out to be about as useful an addition as Princess Anne on spring break in Cabo.

According to the Beast, on the subject of what the duke’s “day-to-day responsibilities” actually are, one employee responded with: “I’m going to go with zero things” – a statement that was “mirrored” by other staffers.

Another recent employee said of the company hiring Harry, “At first I was like, ‘This is cool’” – however, they went on to say that in fact, “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 said.

And what might Harry earn from his busy roster of “zero things”? According to the Mail, the duke takes home a seven-figure salary for his BetterUp gig.

And just like that, we are back here again, for the third time in as many months, with another deal and another company that has forked out a fortune to sign up Harry and Meghan being called out.

The duke and duchess are increasingly looking like the NFTs of corporate America, a fad that people rushed to pile into, threw millions at and giddily ballyhooed their genius, only to reap the most minimal return on investment.

According to the Mail, the duke takes home a seven-figure salary for his BetterUp gig. Picture: Carl Court/Getty Images

In 1720, the South Sea Bubble was the world’s first real market crash; in 2023, it’s the Sussex Bubble that seems to be bursting.

In retrospect, it’s highly unfortunate that the duchess chose to wear a $5310 lemon Oscar de la Renta dress in 2021 for a promotional Spotify video, given that’s largely what the Sussexes’ careers are looking like.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Netflix will not renew their contract when it runs out, and The Sun quoted a source saying of their relationship with the streamer, “The feeling is that the lemon has been fully squeezed”.

(Which I think makes the Duke and Duchess of Sussex the citron pressé of Hollywood).

Now, this week, we have gotten this BetterUp report and the claim that Harry earns millions for doing what sounds like diddly-squat. (Well, maybe diddly-squat plus his ping-pong expertise).

Nearly three years on since Harry and Meghan began their contract gold rush, what is clear is that when they signed all their big-budget, big-smiles and big-fanfare deals, they were at the apogee of their fame. They were indisputably a potent and exciting new addition to the Hollywood firmament. Which stonkingly large company with an associated stonkingly large marketing budget bigger than the GDP of Paraguay wouldn’t want to wangle the duke and duchess on board?

After all, being able to put the Sussex name and their titles on a company letterhead would automatically trigger global media coverage of the sort that most companies only get when their tanker runs aground in Nova Scotia and kills a baby penguin colony.

Everyone wanted a piece of the Sussexes, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley darlings to entertainment giants. Picture: Oli Scarff/AFP

I suppose they were a bit like the Berlin Wall or the medieval market in relics: Everyone wanted a piece of them, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley darlings to entertainment giants.

But here’s the bit in the montage where a breeze ruffles the pages of a diary and we fast-forward to today, when things are looking increasingly sour for the duke and duchess.

While they have notched up some impressive wins, such as Harry & Meghan hitting number one and becoming the biggest nonfiction debut on the platform, and Spare rocketing into the stratosphere to become the biggest-selling nonfiction book in history, these are not successes they can replicate.

With their well of royal truth bled dry and their vein of grievances and resentments having essentially been strip-mined, going forward, it’s looking like the Sussexes are something of dud hires.

Their non-royal baiting content ideas sound truly ridiculous and giggle-worthy, with Harry allegedly pitching the concept of interviewing Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump about their childhood hurts and wondering if the Pope could spare him any time.

Together, they have also reportedly been working on a Great Expectations prequel focused on reframing Miss Havisham as “a strong woman living in a patriarchal society”, which resembles some undergrad claptrap of the highest order.

This weekend, it was reported that they had bought the rights to best-selling book Meet Me At The Lake, which is about the trauma of a parent dying in a car crash, mental health and postnatal depression. Fresh ideas, like synthetic fibres and cow’s milk, would seem to be in very short supply in Montecito.

Nor have the duke and duchess been earning any plaudits for displaying peppy attitudes and eagerness to please.

In June, the couple and Spotify parted ways, with an industry source 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 question is, where the hell do the Sussexes go from here?

And while you, me and Ari Emanuel, Meghan’s new super agent, ponder what might come next for the duke and duchess, consider this.

The Times’ Valentine Low writes in his excellent and impeccably reported Courtiers that back when the duke and duchess were still 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 someone in California should consider starting up a Sussex Investors’ Club.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Originally published as ‘Juice isn’t worth the squeeze’: Employees claim Prince Harry paid millions to do nothing