Prince Harry joins Silicon Valley start-up
Prince Harry left his role as a senior royal and after moving to California he's taking on a more American job: an executive at a tech start-up in Silicon Valley. Harry will become chief impact officer of BetterUp Inc., the company's CEO Alexi Robichaux wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
BetterUp is a professional coaching platform with a goal to "fuel whole person growth through individual coaching and custom support," according to the company's site.
"As a true citizen of the world, he has dedicated his life's work to bringing attention to the diverse needs of people everywhere and advocating for mental health initiatives: from founding the Invictus Games, a platform for service personnel to use sport as part of their psychological and physical rehabilitation, to launching Sentebale, which supports the mental health and wellbeing of young people affected by HIV in Lesotho and Botswana," Roubichaux said in the post.
In his own blog post, Harry said he joined BetterUp because he believes "that focusing on and prioritising our mental fitness unlocks potential and opportunity that we never knew we had inside of us."
"As the Royal Marine Commandos say, 'It's a state of mind.' We all have it in us," he continued. He said during his decade in the military, he learned that "we don't just need to build physical resilience, but also mental resilience."
"And in the years since, my understanding of what resilience means — and how we can build it — has been shaped by the thousands of people and experts I've been fortunate to meet and learn from," Harry said.
Harry revealed he has worked with a BetterUp coach, which he found "invaluable."
Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, left the U.K. last year and are now living in their own house in the Santa Barbara area. Harry's new job is not the couple's first business venture in the U.S. They started their own nonprofit foundation, Archewell, and also signed deals with Spotify and Netflix for content creation through Archewell Audio and Archewell Productions.
In a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey on CBS, Harry revealed the struggles he and Meghan endured as part of the royal family, including racism and negative media attention, and explained their decision to leave their roles and move to the U.S.
He also said the royal family cut him off financially in the first quarter of 2020, when he and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, planned to step back from their duties as "senior" royals. At the time, they had had "no plan," Harry said.
"I've got all my mom left me and without that we would not be able to do this," Harry said. According to BBC News, Harry and his brother, Prince William, received the bulk of the £13m fortune left by their mother when she died.
In his blog post for BetterUp, Harry said: "Self-optimisation is not about fixing something that's broken. It's about becoming the best version of ourselves, with whatever life throws at us — someone who is ready for the next challenge and can meet setbacks with courage, confidence, and self-awareness."