The Rich Roll Podcast: Nick Thompson—The Fastest Runner in Publishing

Guest: Nick Thompson (CEO of The Atlantic, elite runner)
Host: Rich Roll
Episode Date: October 20, 2025
Main Theme: Personal growth, father-son relationships, running as a metaphor for self-understanding, overcoming adversity (cancer, career setbacks), and the future of media in the AI age.

Episode Overview

Rich Roll sits down with Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, world-class journalist, and elite marathoner, for a wide-ranging conversation. Ostensibly about Nick’s new memoir, The Running Ground, the discussion weaves through running, aging, masculinity, intergenerational trauma, reconciling with a complicated father, beating cancer, career pivots, and the existential challenges facing media as AI disrupts information. This episode is a compelling masterclass on using life’s tribulations for growth and the unique powers of running as both metaphor and crucible for personal transformation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Running as a Portal to Self-Discovery

• Simplicity and Universality of Running
  • Nick describes running as a minimalist pursuit: “The thesis… is that because running is so simple… you can go running. Just you go out the door… When you compete, you run on the exact same course as the best people in the world at the exact same time. You don't do that in any other sport.” (03:24, 10:20)
• Running as Daily Meditation and Mirror
  • Rich: “There's nothing like running that can give you that kind of clarity. And with that clarity you're then presented with this choice and this opportunity… whether you want to confront these things and heal them.” (12:39)
  • Nick: “Running is unquestionably my meditation… the clarity you get from that kind of repetitive action… triggers things in your brain that are very hard to trigger through other mechanisms.” (13:30)

2. Personal Growth, Avoidance, and Family

• Rich shares his personal struggle managing his mother’s dementia, realizing his own lifelong attempt to “outrun” his past and family pain, only to discover:
  • “I tried to outrun my past only to realize that… it always does find a way to catch up. Which provides us with a choice. You can quicken your pace, or you can decide to stop running, to face it, and make peace with it. So if you're stuck, this is how you get unstuck.” (06:29)
• Nick’s book centers on his relationship with his father: “It’s a book about fathers and sons, and it’s a reconciliation with your past, and it’s about intergenerational trauma… and most importantly to arrest them so you’re not passing them on to your boys.” (43:48, 44:50)

3. Aging, Limits, and "Rolling Peaks"

• Nick challenges the myth that physical peak is in your 20s, advocating the concept of "rolling peaks":
  • “Instead of it being a descent… it’s actually rolling peaks… you get better, you get a little worse, but then you get better. Yes, your reflexes are going to get worse… But you gain wisdom, there are physiological benefits, and there are ways you can counter it.” (26:07)

4. Competition, Obsession & Evolving Identity

• Running’s hazards: self-obsession, using sport as avoidance, and the ego traps of identity.
  • “Running can totally make you self-absorbed… wreck marriages… make you a crappy parent because you’re spending all this time running. There’s a certain self-obsession, you know, that’s pretty rampant...” (18:07)
• On chasing PRs and perspective:
  • “For 99% of the world, nobody cares at all… It’s really just about you and you… my whole sense of self-worth is based upon these numbers.” (20:30)

5. Breakthroughs, Plateaus, and the Mind-Body Barrier

• Nick recounts his years stuck at the same marathon time, then a surge after elite coaching (and his father’s death).
• The importance of mental barriers:
  • “It was clear you had the talent to go much faster… but it was also clear that you were a little afraid of those paces…” (22:25)
• On performance and perception:
  • “You never could have run that fast had you known how fast you were going.” (64:23)
• Running and pain tolerance:
  • “Where does the line between the brain and the body exist? Trying to figure that out… you do hurt for real reasons… but it is such a strange phenomenon.” (67:10)

6. Overcoming Cancer

• Nick’s thyroid cancer diagnosis at 30 is intimately tied to his running.
  • “It’s not pancreatic cancer… but it was just a total shock… and going through that mental process is just completely different.” (92:22)
  • “You have post-traumatic growth… when you get to the other side, you behave differently… and you cut out trivia.” (96:31)

7. Fatherhood and Intergenerational Healing

• Insights into how patterns—genetic, behavioral—repeat across generations.
• “Sometimes you just don’t know what your kids are going to take… but it’s a reminder that you don’t have complete control, but you do have some control.” (45:32)
• On his father’s tumultuous life, fall from grace, and legacy (see next section for a longer quote).

8. Career Resilience: Journalism, Setbacks, and Leadership

• Fired from 60 Minutes “in less than sixty minutes” (80:43)
• Success follows years of busking, failing, pivoting, and ultimately finding a niche in journalism combining editorial and business skills.
• At The New Yorker, “I realized, oh, I’m pretty good at managing these projects… I love doing serious journalism. Let me build business models.” (104:08)
• Core mission: “My job is to create a lot of money so that we can hire lots of journalists to write more stories. That’s good for this country.” (107:56)

9. Media in the Age of AI

• AI as both a business threat and tool:
  • “AI will disrupt the mechanism by which people find content… the cost of creating a new intellectual publication will be very low. You can also just go to The Atlantic, scrape it all, summarize it slightly, and republish it as yourself… So we have this huge competitive threat.” (117:15)
• On the existential challenge:
  • “What worries me the most is what I call the end of reality. You don't know whether the person you're talking to is a bot, you don't know whether the thing that you're reading was written by a human… It is a dark world that we're going into.” (125:00, 127:29)
  • “All one can do if you’re Rich Roll, Nick Thompson, whoever, is try to be as honest as possible on social media…help the folks building the best tool.” (127:29)
• Imagining the future: “If the horizontal race goes as fast as the vertical race… then tools will be built… you will have all powerful AI with humanistic values and understanding of reality—that’s the best version of the future.” (128:51)
• Realism: “Society holds together. There’s just much more toxicity online… and new kinds of fraud. It’s going to be chaotic.” (126:48)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The days he [my father] ran were the days he held things together.” —Nick Thompson (139:15)
• “I tried to outrun my past only to realize… it always does find a way to catch up to you, which provides us with a choice. You can…quick[en] your pace…or face it.” —Rich Roll (06:29)
• “You never complete a run and say, I wish I hadn’t done that.” —Nick Thompson (139:08)
• “Instead of [aging] being a descent, it’s actually rolling peaks…” —Nick Thompson (26:07)
• “Running can totally make you self-absorbed… wreck marriages… make you a crappy parent… It evinces a certain insecurity… my whole sense of self worth is based upon these numbers.” —Nick Thompson (18:07–20:30)
• “I use [AI] in my running… I upload what I eat, I upload my training logs and ask it for advice and…it’s fabulous.” —Nick Thompson (135:33)
• “If you want to understand yourself and you want to kind of have more clarity on your life, it’s not a bad idea to go for a run.” —Nick Thompson, paraphrasing his memoir (138:21)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–03:24 -- (Sponsorships/Ads skipped)
• 03:24 -- Nick introduces running as a metaphor for life.
• 09:14 -- Nick discusses balancing being a father, CEO, and elite runner.
• 14:30 -- Stoicism, discipline, and running as a spiritual journey.
• 18:07 -- Hazards of running obsession and ego.
• 22:25 -- Breaking mental barriers in running after elite coaching.
• 26:07 -- “Rolling peaks” concept and aging with athletic ambition.
• 43:48 -- Themes of reconciliation, intergenerational trauma.
• 53:52 -- Processing his father’s fall from grace and mirroring parental ambition.
• 67:05 -- Pain, the mind-body connection, and performance.
• 92:22 -- Overcoming cancer and the profound impact on mindset and gratitude.
• 104:08 -- Transitioning from editorial to business leadership; building journalistic institutions.
• 115:32 -- Outlook for media in the AI age, challenges of misinformation.
• 125:00–127:29 -- The “end of reality” fear; Nick’s optimism/pessimism about AI.
• 135:33 -- Using AI tools for training, learning, and recovery.
• 138:21 -- Final wisdom: running as a tool for self-understanding; “little tailwind” metaphor.

Structure & Tone

The episode is rich, free-flowing, and highly reflective. Both Nick and Rich are candid and vulnerable, often switching between deeply personal stories and broad societal commentary. They speak in a thoughtful, sometimes humorous, yet earnest and authentic tone.

Takeaways for Non-Listeners

• Running isn’t just fitness; it’s a lifelong mechanism for personal interrogation, clarity, and healing.
• Growth often requires confronting—rather than avoiding—the past.
• Aging need not be a surrender to decline; with deliberate practice and learning, new “peaks” are possible.
• Career and athletic breakthroughs often parallel setbacks; resilience is key.
• Media faces existential threats from AI, requiring innovation, honesty, and relentless commitment to quality and truth.
• Daily, humble practices (like running or honest reflection) can generate imperceptible but powerful forces for positive change.

This episode is essential for runners (or anyone running from something), parents, professionals at a crossroads, and anyone navigating the turbulence of the AI era.