Another reason Prince Andrew is a disgrace 🙄

NB —This article is a followup to a tweet I made about sponsors pulling out of Pitch@Palace here.

Back in 2014 I was invited by the Duke of York to attend a drinks and networking reception around Christmas at Buckingham Palace for the founding of the Digital5. To this day I have no idea why other than I founded a few digital companies. It was completely out of the blue. Regardless of which I accepted (why not?!) and had a fantastic time meeting very senior members of foreign governments who seemed just as bemused as I was, and taking selfies surreptitiously of the decorations (we were clearly told no photos so sorry Andy). The staff at the palace were unexpectedly lovely and if you ever have the chance I thoroughly recommend a visit. It was great fun.

Subsequently, I was invited to pitch at one of Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace events. The organisers said I had to fill out an application, which was online (at the time of writing it was still available here). I’ve done literally hundreds of these types of things, so I have a routine for qualifying them out which largely involves checking if I’m available.

I joke, but you can probably tell from my avatar that I have some grey hairs. I know there a few shysters around, increasingly skimming less experienced founders in the tech startup industry. One of the signals for…