Dear Eileen,
Like all legendary coaches, every tenure has a natural shelf life. In the world of elite sports, we eventually witness the exact moment a coach’s philosophy loses the room or a star’s "versatility" becomes a liability to the roster. It isn’t a lack of talent; it’s a failure of alignment. It is clear that your involvement in the U.S. has hit that plateau. It’s not you, Eileen; it’s us. Your deafening silence has simply become incompatible with our roster. This is no one’s fault; it’s just timing.
We truly admire the utility of your voice on geopolitics. Your principled stance against the recent unjust critiques by the President when other athletes equivocated on the pride they felt for their country on the grandest athletic stage—defending the Olympic spirit while maintaining a vacuum of silence regarding state-backed genocide in your adopted homeland—was a masterclass in deflection. It’s a gift, really. Most struggle with such overt selective morality; you’ve elevated it to a high-art mirage. We are impressed by the stamina required to maintain that alternate reality. Obviously, if this conflict caused you any inward consternation, we hope the $23 million in corporate sponsorships offered some consolation. We’re confident that you could be an excellent mentor for other misguided athletes being principled without extracting payment. A voice of principled reason in the moment of an unjust criticism. Truly a beacon for all of humanity (provided the target is safe).
But it’s time for a hard conversation. Rather than blocking your number, we felt we owed you an explanation. We think you’ll love the positives of relocating permanently to China. It’s a tremendous opportunity to finally immerse yourself in the environment you so frequently defend from the comfort of Palo Alto. While it has undoubtedly been a burden being in America, you seem to have maximized the “standard” American upbringing—Stanford, the First Amendment, the luxury of dissent—unassailable privileges typically denied to the 1.4 billion people you represent. You aren’t average, and you deserve a system that rewards your "sponsorship nirvana." Siphoning money from adversarial nations while expressing zero compunction or public regret is a remarkable feat, graduating to the pinnacle of self-adulation, as fawning companies seeking sway in China, like Oakley, Porsche, Red Bull, Tiffany & Company, Louis Vuitton, Victoria’s Secret, and IMG (unlike Chinese companies in the U.S., a reciprocity unavailable to all but a few U.S. companies, even then requiring sharing technology as a condition precedent). We think you’ll agree the benefits are plentiful.
By moving to Beijing, you’ll finally be liberated from the plague of prying journalists. Rather than dealing with "geopolitical headline" noise, you can trade the stressful open-discourse of Stanford for a curriculum where the State has already "harmonized" the truth for you. You will never be required (or allowed) to deal with dissent, affording you the serenity you’ve been unjustly denied. In America, as Future Union pointed out in Newsweek, an athlete’s silence on injustice is equivalent to implicit condonement; in China, it is simply a professional requirement. Your mastery of deflection will undoubtedly take you far.
Logistically, the move is a dream. Managing $23 million in Western sponsorships requires a nightmare of contortions of "values" that are simply inhumane. In China, you can enjoy an absolute unanimity of purpose. Why juggle a dozen fickle Western contracts when you can have one massive, state-approved portfolio aligned with the state’s “Common Prosperity” initiative?
When the skiing ends, you’ll never suffer the indignity of having to apply to a unicorn startup in Silicon Valley or any technology company. Your Stanford pedigree and access make you the perfect candidate for the Thousand Talents Program, helping China close the "innovation gap" by overtly assisting in the "recruitment" and passing of stolen Western intellectual property. You will no longer be viewed myopically as merely a world-class athlete with beauty; you’d be elevated to "Strategic Asset" status. It’s the ultimate career pivot: from “Action Sports Star” to "Intellectual Property Conduit," helping China close the gap against the very country that raised you.
Finally, while reputation in America is a chaotic mix of public opinion and personal merit, that can be disorienting. And for someone who relishes the validation of a leaderboard, you’ll love the Social Credit Score. What’s more satisfying than a government-issued grade confirming you are, indeed, a "Model Citizen"? Plus, you’ll enjoy the ultimate influencer flex: being the only person in the country officially permitted to use Instagram and TikTok. Posting about "global unity" from behind a Great Firewall that everyone else is jailed for crossing? That is the pinnacle of status.
We hear they have excellent universities in China, which you may not know yet, if you haven’t lived there. Perhaps Stanford could allow you to complete your studies "abroad" in an ecosystem that boasts the enormous largess of technology captured through intellectual property theft and “forced technology transfer” from America's startups, technology companies, and university ecosystem.
Every story arc has an end. This is the moment to take your singular talents to South Beach—I mean, China. We commend your stance in standing up for "your country"—wait, that was America—but we realize your real loyalty lies with the one that pays for your custom dragon suits. We admire you using the Olympic crucible to stand for your beliefs, just like the Ukrainian athletes—though they, of course, have lost friends and family in war, while you have merely gained a larger portfolio, but who needs quibble with such details. As such, we believe this decision better aligns with the principles you’ve unabashedly articulated on the podium and your intense feelings for your adopted homeland.
I’m rambling, but we believe that it’s time to build that "pond" you’ve always sought on the other side of the Pacific. This isn’t you; it’s us. We’ve grown apart; we’ve aged out of this charade. This is our "unwinnable press war," and an inevitable breakup is necessary. We felt it only appropriate to be upfront—a courtesy your preferred country would never allow—rather than just ignoring your calls.
Safe travels,
America
Andrew King is GP at Bastille Ventures, investing in critical technology furthering national security, and founder of the bipartisan nonprofit, Future Union, working with the private sector to combat state espionage, and advises Congress, the Select Committee on China, Dept. of Treasury, Dept. of Commerce, and White House. Formerly, he was the general counsel of the Dallas Stars NHL team and corporate lawyer, hedge fund investor, and investment banker.
