Nicholas Thompson has been one of the definers of the digital revolution in all of its impact on our life. After graduating from Stanford and engaging in freelance writing, he became editor of NewYorker.com. Later, he became Editor-in-Chief of Wired as the power of social media became more pervasive. Now he is the CEO of The Atlantic as artificial intelligence becomes more involved in our daily life.

Thompson has written two books. The first was The Hawk and the Dove about Paul Nitze, the hawk, and George Kennan, the dove. Nitze was Thompson’s maternal grandfather.

The second, published in 2025, is The Running Ground about Thompson’s life as a serious and successful marathon runner. It is much more than a book about running. It is about his cancer struggle and the emotional story of his relationship to his father. Thompson makes running central to his identity and attitudes about competition, fear, ambition, and endurance. Nicholas Thompson has achieved great success, but in The Running Ground uses his success in running to explore not only the joy of victory but also its cost.

As we learn more about the progress in artificial intelligence, it is a moment to consider its value and its risk.

We will talk about many things with Nicholas Thompson, including running as a metaphor for life, his relationship with his father, the digital revolution, social media, and the impact of artificial intelligence on all of us.