45: Nicholas Thompson - A Life of Long Form
Nicholas Thompson (Website, X, LinkedIn, Wikipedia) is the CEO of The Atlantic, an elite distance runner, and the author of The Running Ground—a memoir about his father, his life, and the sport of running. Full transcript and all links at dialectic.fm/nick-thompson. Nick has led The Atlantic to tremendous subscriber growth and profitability since joining the then-money losing publication in early 2021. He was previously editor-in-chief of WIRED and editor of newyorker.com. He also co-founded The Atavist, wrote The Hawk and The Dove, and is a prolific interviewer, including his latest series, The Most Interesting Thing in AI. Nick is also the American record holder in the 50K, which he re-broke two days after we recorded this conversation (Exhales). We talked about the future of words in the age of AI, what makes a journalist, why legacy media institutions like The Atlantic are worth fighting for, and what great editing and coaching have in common. Then we turned to running and life: the small tailwinds that compound beyond what we can imagine, Nick’s trajectory—through a prodigious start, early career failure and African kidnapping, cancer at 30, and wild success since—to name a few beats, the trials and blessings of inheritance, and the versions of himself he may no longer have time to find. To close, Nick honors Scott Thompson’s memory by sharing how we might all be more like him and reflects on what drives aliveness.
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Speaker A: If the writer can only jump over a 6-foot bar, your job is not to like try to get them over a 7-foot bar. Your job is to get them over that 6-foot bar. You've got to figure out what is the best version of the story given their skills, given the idea, given the time, and you got to get them there. Arrest the journalists, you like buy the publications, shut down the critical publications, right? Like that is part of the process of democracy to autocracy. I am going to fight that because I believe in democracy.
Well, there's something nice in the continuum that The Atlantic has played this role. We were founded to help create conversations to help prevent a civil war, and Martin Luther King published a letter from a Birmingham jail. And like, there is something important about keeping this publication having Good, accurate journalism matter. You know, my goal is what is the thing that I can do that will increase the number of good stories? Because I think that's important. Speaker B: I've had a few people ask me if I'm a journalist. Speaker A: What do you say?
Speaker B: I usually say, like, I don't think so. Speaker A: If your primary commitment is to your audience, you're a journalist, right? If your primary commitment is to the guest or to an advertiser, maybe you're not. It's been 33 years since, like, I actually cared even 1 millionth of 1% whether I was ahead or behind anybody in a race. This is one of the funnier things. I remember, I think it was Jeff Goldblatt, the editor-in-chief. He's like, you know what was really surprising about your book? Like, you've been this elite runner for like 30 years and you've won 3 races, right?
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