Habits and Hustle - Episode 497: Nick Thompson: How Running 100 Miles Taught Him to Run a $13 Billion Media Empire

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

How does a CEO who runs 100-mile races turn around a struggling media company? In this episode on the Habits and Hustle podcast, Nick Thompson, CEO of the Atlantic, joins me to share how the mental strategies that get you through mile 40 of a mountain race are the same ones that grow a publication from 800,000 to 1.35 million subscribers. We dive into why daily practice beats talent in both running and business, and the dark side of elite running culture that creates eating disorders. We also discuss the Signal chat scandal that drove tens of thousands of new subscriptions. Nick Thompson is the CEO of the Atlantic, which has grown profitable under his leadership after years of losses. He's also the American record holder in the 50K for runners 45+ and author of The Running Ground, a memoir exploring how running shapes life, business, and relationships. What We Discuss:  03:14 - Why Nick started running at age 5 with his father during a family crisis 08:46 - How running is a microcosm for life and teaches grit through hard things 14:24 - The Alexander Technique: How a guitar wrist injury prevented 25 years of running injuries 28:16 - Why consistent daily practice is the most important lesson from running 50:04 - How Nick got faster in his 40s by training smarter with specific workouts 55:40 - How the Atlantic grew from 800K to 1.35M subscribers through paywall optimization 1:01:10 - The Signal chat scandal: How Jeff Goldberg was accidentally added to the White House group chat 1:12:10 - Trump's "fixed heartbeats" theory and whether ultra running shortens your lifespan 1:17:25 - The dark side of running: Why elite coaches tell athletes to look like "a skeleton with a condom on" 1:19:19 - How running culture creates eating disorders and destroys young athletes' bodies …and more! Thank you to our sponsors: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off  Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. Momentous: Shop this link and use code Jen for 20% off  Manna Vitality: Visit mannavitality.com and use code JENNIFER20 for 20% off your order  Prolon: Get 30% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program! Just visit https://prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN and use code JENNIFERCOHEN to claim your discount and your bonus gift.   Find more from Jen:  Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen   Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Nick Thompson:  Instagram:@nxthompson Website: https://www.nickthompson.com/

Hi, guys. It's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Okay, you guys, Nick Thompson is on the show today. Nick is the CEO of the Atlantic. He is the fastest, well, he's actually a record holder, the fastest runner of his age group of 50K, of 50K, right? Or say it nicer than I did. I'm the American record holder in the 50K for guys 45 up, and I'm the top ranked in the world for guys 45 up this year in the 50 mile. Kind of complicated, but. It's like a tongue twister. It's a little bit.

It's a little confusing. He's basically the fastest man in the world in his age category for 50K, right? For kind of like weird races. For like ultramarathons. And don't forget, also, he is now the author of the Running Ground, which is a memoir slash running book on, and that's actually been, like, has a lot of life lessons, business lessons, which is why I like it. I hope so. And he's on the show today. So, by the way, how we do this show is we start

with a magic mind healthy shot, since I don't, I'm not a drinker, and I'm sure you're not either, given what you do for fun. So this is basically a bunch of, like, yummy, good stuff for you, like Ashwaganda, Ashwaganda, I can never say that. Aschwaganda, I've said that so many times today. You can look at the ingredients if you'd like. but it's basically a performance shot. So what you really should be doing is taking one of these before you do one of your big runs.

And it will keep you super focused and keep your mind right. I'm all in favor of red beet. I'm all in favor of olive oil. I'm all in favor of everything in this. It's really great and green. And it tastes delicious. Gumeric, lions mane.

It's good stuff. It's really good. No, no, it's like really good. Take it right now. Yeah. And we just go, cheers. And then we do them down the hatchet. I've had a lot today.

Wait, all of it at the same time? Yeah. They're good, though, right? Delicious, yeah. They're super good. I can give you some to take home. Awesome. They're delicious.

So thanks, matching mine. All right. So now, let me ask you a question. So you wrote this book, like I said, it's kind of a hybrid book. It's not just like a straight on like how to run. It really is kind of, this is just like the galley. But it's really about like the book of how you, running kind of bonded you and your father together, right? Yeah.

So that's a large part of it. It is a large part of it. So what was your first running experience and like what kind of, like, obviously running had a massive impact on your life? Yeah, sure did. I started running weirdly when I was about five years old. And my father, this was the running boom of the late 1970s, early 1980s. And my dad whose life was coming apart in complicated ways was running in trying to hold his life together. And so he's starting to train for a marathon.

And I would go and run with him. I remember running a mile when I was with him, I think might have even run two miles, which is a lot for a five-year-old. You're five. I remember running from my house to Pine Manor College and Back, which is two and a half miles. Wow. And it couldn't have been older than five because he left when I was six. So that was my introduction to the sport. And then in the 1982, when I was seven, he ran the New York Marathon, and I went and watched him.

And so some of the book is the description of my emotions and feelings as I watched him coming down the Queensborough Bridge or coming off the Queensborough Bridge at Miles 16 of the New York Marathon. Wow. So describe what that felt like. You said your father left. Yeah, so my father left. I didn't understand it at the time. I just knew he was there and then he wasn't there. He's going through all this turmoil. So he's a very interesting character. He grows up, you know, kind of grows up sort of poor, not poor, but like kind of on the wrong side of America. He grows up in Oklahoma, Bocone, Oklahoma on an Indian reservation. His father's high status on the Indian reservation. He's been a missionary. He's come, worked with the president of

college. My father grows up and he, you know, he doesn't really get along with his dad. His dad is this big masculine golden gloves guy from out here, California. And my dad eventually escapes, right? And he's like, I can't handle it here in Oklahoma. And he gets a scholarship to Phillips Andover and then to Stanford and then to Oxford. He marries my mother's family. He's like in this prominent family in Washington. But his career doesn't really work out. John Fennedy says he's going to be president. But like my dad just doesn't work out for my dad. right and he starts drinking too much and then he realizes he's gay and that he's been hiding his sexuality his whole life and so that's right about 1980 1981 so he realized that after i'm born

obviously yeah um you know obviously yeah i guess i kind of figure that one out right um and so it's this hinge point in his life when he's 40 years old and he's like his his head it's all just turmoil and his life after that is quite chaotic um deeply chaotic which we can get into but at that point, he's still able to hold it together. And so he's running, he's running a marathon. It's just kind of enough to keep him going. And so for me, my memory is just absolute fascination with watching my father run, this love emanating from him, this excitement, just missed breaking three hours, which was such a cool goal. And I had this vivid memory. He ran like, I think it was like three hours and 50 seconds. I was like, well, why didn't he just sprint? Right. Well, actually,

that's quite a big distance, you know. Right. So that's what I remember. from the race. So when you decided to write this book, so you are, you obviously gleaned so many lessons from running. What would you say the number, the biggest lesson that running has taught you for life? Yeah. So the, I mean, the biggest, well, why don't I start with the realization that let me write the book, which is quite related to your question. And so I, um, when I was about 30, I ran a marathon. I ran a lot of marathons in my 20s and tried to break three hours and couldn't when I was 30, I ran a marathon at 2.43, which is very good. And then right afterwards, I got cancer. And then it took me two years to really get back at it, and I ran another

marathon at 243. And then, for the next 10 years, I ran like, I don't know, 15 marathons. I pretty much ran them all at 243. It's pretty weird, right? You're from age 30 to 40. You should be slowing or you should be doing something different. It is at the same speed on top of it. Same speed, like always 243. And then in my 40s, I get way. better, right? And I run a 229 at age 44, which is completely different, right? Unless you're a marathon, you don't really know the difference between those times. But 243 to 229 is, it's a step change, right? It's a big difference. And I was thinking after I ran that 229, like, what? Like, why,

why did I run? How did I get so much faster? And I remember the day and I was running across the Brooklyn Bridge. And I had this realization, you know what? I hadn't run faster because all I had wanted to do was to run as fast as I had been before I got sick. Right. You got sick before 30, right? I got sick before 30. So I had run 243, got sick, recovered, and then ran 243 over and over and over and over again. And I kind of had this realization. So I was like, okay, wow. So what determines how fast you run is your body.

It's how strong your calf muscles are and your VO2 max and all that stuff. But so much of it is up here, right? So much of it is the limits you put on yourself. And it was that realization that made me want to write the book to understand more about what slowed me down, what sped me up, what sewed my father down, what sped him up, and then to look at the lives of other runners to understand what the sport could teach about the hard things in their lives.

I feel like running is like a microcosm for life. Yeah. Right? There you go. See, she just written the blurb on the back of the book. I know. That's the goal, right? That's like the goal of the book

is to show how it can be that. It is a microcosm. The reason why I had you on the podcast today was because I feel the same way about like overall like just fitness exercise. I think the like the lessons, the life lessons, the soft skills that people learn by doing these hard things over and over again is like it is, it's teaching you how to have grit and coping mechanisms and be successful in every other aspect of your life. And so I think fitness is like a microcosm for life. And I think especially running,

because running, there's a real mental game with it. I run every day. I don't know if I told you that, not 100 miles like you, but I hate running. I hate running more than anything on the planet. I really do. And that is why I do it every day because it constantly instills in my brain that I can do a hard thing. If I can do this today, I've accomplished something, I can do it again tomorrow. And there's nothing that clears my mind and keeps me on point better than running.

There's nothing. There's no other cardio. There's no other thing in the world. I believe there's a straight line between people who are runners and people who are like super successful in business, in life, and everything else. I really do. Yeah, I mean, and that's part of the thesis of the book that because running is so simple. It's you. It's your shoes. It's the road, right? You can do it any day. It's your thoughts. It's your thoughts. You're alone in your head, right? And so you get deep into your head while you run and you can also understand yourself because there's no racket, there's no ball, there's nothing else, there's no water, right? It's just you out there. And so the simplicity of it kind of opens up the complexity of human understanding and habit formation and

all the things that you were just talking about. So is that, so walk me through your life like you were running with your dad obviously. You saw him like, so did something kind of like tweak in your brain where like your neuroscience like did your neuro like does something like your neuroplot like neurons in your brain kind of become addicted to running because you saw what it was doing for yourself your life outside did you realize the endorphins like what kind of was that moment where you felt like you became a runner that's a hard question actually so because it happens really it really happens maybe three different times and so it happens when I'm five right and I think of myself as a runner but I stop, right?

My dad moves away, and I run with him occasionally, but I wasn't a runner. And then in high school, I play soccer, basketball tennis, and I get cut from the basketball team, right? My sophomore year in high school, I show up at this new school, sophomore year, I get cut. I got cut from the varsity, which I think I'm going to make, and then I get cut from the JV. Pretty embarrassing. And then I get cut from the JV, too, right? Like, that's pretty hard to do. So you're not really a good basketball player, is what you're trying to tell me.

Or the crowd, yeah. I thought I was pretty good, but clearly not, right? Yeah, right, right. Other people maybe a little bit slightly better. Yeah, there are definitely players who are, I mean, I should have made that JV2 team. I mean, I will stand by this. But no, I wasn't, I wasn't good. And so the only sport you could do was track. And so I started to do track, and I discovered I was good, right?

And then that gave me confidence. I was in a new school, it's a hard school. I wasn't doing very well. I wasn't that socially accepted. But then suddenly, you know, in a month or two, I'm a track star, and suddenly I'm cool. Because you were fast. I was fast. So could I ask you a question? Because when you walked in here, I'm like, oh, of course, you know, like, you have the body type to make a good runner. You know, there is a genetic component, I do believe. I mean, to becoming an ultramarathon or like, if you are kind of like more voluptuous, I feel more athletic. It's very hard because it's like the people that do the best, they have very, like, they're very narrow hips. They're very, their body types are a certain way. So do you feel that you just naturally were, like, you're, you were built to be, if you're going to. If you're going to. to be doing a sport, I'm not surprised it's running. You're built to be a runner. Yeah, I definitely,

to those of you who are not watching the audio version, I am a skinny guy. Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. You're a skinny person. But you also looks like you're, well, you always just very genetically thin. I wasn't as thin as I am now. You know, probably wait a bit more when I was, when I was that age. But yeah, clearly, when I show up on the track team, the coach looks at me and he's not going to say, go do the shot put. Right, right, right. Or go do wrestling or whatever. yeah um and you know like clearly this kid should be running the distances right maybe the mile maybe the two mile but he's not going to be a sprinter he's not going to be a shot putter he's not going to be a long jumper yeah yeah so i'm physically built to be a long distance runner right and you know probably to a

degree that you don't even appreciate like part of it is my size but i have other genetic advantages turns out that i'm reasonably durable it turns out that i have a reasonably high you know efficient cardiovascular system and running is this very weird sport where you know it's power times efficiency divided by mass, and I have, like, low mass, right? And so you can have, like, relatively, you know, your power and efficiency, you can compensate by having low mass. Do you find it harder to run as you get older because of your, just because it's so hard in your body? Like, I won't even do a marathon because I find that the pounding on your joints can be really hard. You know, I'm extremely fortunate in that I've had almost no injuries in running,

which is very rare and surprising. Because your body type. Because my body type, then I also have this wonderful thing that happened, kind of weird, which is that I was a musician in my 20s and I was a guitarist. And I had really debilitating wrist pain. I played a very like physical kind of guitar, right? Okay. And when I was about 24, 25, I was playing in New York City Subways, played all the time, right? Played all this concerts in New York. And I just couldn't move my wrist. I couldn't like open the door. I couldn't like brush my teeth. And I tried all these different things. I tried injections. I used to like, in fact, I re-keyed my keyboard so that the letters are kind of closer together. I still type that way, which is like a very nice security hack. Like when I give my laptop to someone, they always get confused. Wow. I never would ever think to do that. It's so cool. It's called the Dvorak keyboard. It makes you type more quickly, but it also means less strain on your fingers. Anyway, that's not an anyway. That's like a great thing to know. It's awesome. And where do you even get that from? So you can just change your software. Like you can go into your computer right there and

just change keyboard layout to Dvorak and then all the letters will be different, right? Because the initial keyboard was set up to kind of slow you down so that the keys on old typewriters don't jam. Like, look at your keyboard. The letters make no sense. They don't. Right. Right. Like, letters you don't use are in the middle of the keyboard where your index fingers go. This is crazy. Yeah. It's so dumb and it's so annoying once you're aware of it. Right. There's no logic to it whatsoever. So this thing called the Dvorac keyboard puts the letters you use the most and the patterns you use the most in the simplicity. So when I type, it's like this. When most people type, it's like, right? That's so true. What a great thing So, Pike saves you a lot of time.

I mean, not much time it saves you, but it saves you a little bit of time. A little bit of time. And it is a good security hack, right? Like somebody steals my laptop and starts typing away, they'll just, unless they know how to, now I've given away my secret, right? Oh, oh, yeah. Do you have a lot of thieves who listen to your podcast? I think maybe.

I don't know. I can make sure I edit this part out. Anyway, so back to the injury. So I did all these, like, crazy things trying to make it better. And then I went and saw someone who teaches the Alexander technique. and you know it's a training of posture training for actors and musicians and he says bring your guitar and bring my guitar and he watches me play and he's like well this will be easy and then he just adjust the way I hold my feet and the way I hold my head and the way I hold my wrist when I play guitar

and then this two years of agony goes away in like weeks right almost immediately I can feel a difference like my wrist no longer hurts so suddenly I've learned this way of holding my body that makes this injury go away. And so now, that was 25 years ago. Anytime I start to hurt, right, like I just did a big race afterwards. I had a little tendinitis in my knee, I suddenly have a way of holding my body to increase energy flow, increase balance that makes me hurt less. And so when I run, my posture is very much based on Alexander technique. And I'm convinced that that and the general practice of learning how to like release muscle tension that came from this guitar injury has prevented me or helped prevent me from having injury problems as I've gotten older.

Now, that said, I'll probably like break my ankle tomorrow. I know. Don't even say that. What shoes do you wear? I wear all kinds of different running shoes. I ran my last one in, I guess I ran the ultra in the Nike Ultra Flies. I did my last 50 mile. You were in Nike's in, you were actual Nike's when you did like an ultramarathon. Oh, a trail Nikes. No, but Nikes is kind of known to be like a nice looking shoe, but not really a performance-based shoe. Well, the vaporflies and the ultra flies, they have the performance shoes. And I wore the

Puma R3s in the last 50 mile. I wore new balances in the race before that. I would think you were an A6 or a new balance kind of person, because they're more Brooks even. No? I've worn, I wear, I alternate shoes a lot. And I alternate shoes because it changes the tension and pressure it puts on your body. Right. So if you wear like, you know, I don't know, high lift in the heel, right? Like, you know, lots of cushion under there. Maybe it puts more pressure on your Achilles. And be less on your knee. And what you want to do is you want to alternate the amount of pressure. And so I actually think you should wear as many different kinds of shoes as you can during a training cycle, but you should be very particular about the ones you race in. And so I do a lot of

data analysis to figure out what shoes I should race in on a particular course on a particular day. But when I'm training, I vary it a ton. That's a really good. That's actually a great tip. So what are your top shoes to train in? So for what kind of, like just for around the day? No, like just to, if you're just, yeah, for a few miles around the day, a few miles, yeah, three or four miles a day. I've been wearing the Puma Nitros. I think they're like a very good pair. You know, the Puma R3s, fast R3s are what I, what I raced in. I think the Nike Pegasus and the Nike Vermeros are really good training shoes. And then I use the vapor flies for road races and the ultra flies for trail races. I use on shoes for, you know, regular running. The cloud booms, I think are very cool. I've run in Hokas. You like Hokas? Sure, yeah, totally.

So like... I ran into the rockets. They're cool. How about the idea of do you wear orthotics or anything like that? No. Is it because you think that they're not good for your feet because it's put your foot into a weirder position or... Because that's what a lot of my friends have been telling me that I should be getting out of orthotics and just wear, you know, even bear go barefoot and like do stuff barefoot. So you should, I do think you should do some stuff barefoot.

I don't think you should ever run like on a road barefoot. No, not in a road there. There was this moment like 15 years ago and everybody's running barefoot and then it was like great for like a week and then they all stepped on nails. Right, no, no, no. I was going to say, how about even like walking on a treadmill with bare feet? Yeah, that's great. So I think that's good and I think it's good spiritually and I think it's good physically, right?

I think it strengthens your ankles. It strengthens your toes. I run on golf courses barefoot. So I will go and do sprints on a golf course after a workout or strides or on a soccer field. Like maybe I'll run a workout around. track and then I'll do strides afterwards on the grass barefoot, which I think is great for strengthening your feet and just kind of connecting your toes in your head, the sky. Oh, that's so.

That's really wonderful. But I do think that I'm not against orthotics. Your doctor says use orthotics. I do think you really want to vary your shoes, right? Because I do think that it changes, changes a lot. And also, I learned this really interesting lesson once, and I was talking to this really smart guy about running. And I had, I'd like, gone and I'd run down, I'd run up and down this mountain.

and I'd run in and kind of worn out shoes, and my quads hurt like hell. I call them up, and I'm like, this is, I was so stupid. He's like, no, that was smart. I was what you mean? It's like, the whole point is you want your quads at some point in your training cycle to get more stressed than they will in the marathon, right?

Because in a marathon, you're going to do 26 miles, pound in our road, your quads are going to hurt, your cardiovascular system is going to hurt, you're going to get dehydrated, you're going to have gastric distress. At some point in the training cycle, you want to stress each of those systems more than you'll stress it in the marathon.

And the marathon, you'll stress everything to the max on that day. Training, you want to stress everything a little bit more. So one way to do it is to run down a mountain in bad shoes. And so what he was saying is your quads hurt because you stress them and now they're growing back stronger. You run down the mountain in really nice shoes. You actually hurt your quads less, and so they develop less muscular resilience. And so I kind of like the idea of messing around with different shoes, running barefoot, running in bad shoes, you know, all of that. That's really, but like the thing is, what about injury? That's how people get injured, right?

Like if I didn't, if I have a bad ankle or a bad knee and I'm not wearing orthotics, I would be nervous that I would obviously hurt myself. Yeah, you can, that is definitely a counter argument, and I would say that maybe actually what you need to do is if you have a bad knee, change whatever shoes you wore when you got the bad knee or every other day wear a different pair of shoes

because maybe it's those shoes are putting the extra pressure on your knee and you should shift some of the pain to your Achilles. But hey, I'm not a knee doctor, and don't take this advice to bank. You're not a shoe salesman either, but I just, I'm there. I love, I love, like, the nitty-gritty of things, though, too, right? Like, that's what I, I, like, love that stuff.

So, okay, so now I know the shoe situation. So how did you, when you became, like, I still don't know, so when you were running, like, did you become obsessed with the feeling afterwards? Oh, yeah. Like, I didn't answer your initial question, which is, like, what was the thing that pulled me in? Initially, I think it was actually, it wasn't the feeling. feeling of the sport, right? And I spent a lot of time thinking about this because I think it was really just the self-confidence, right? And it was the, you know, and it translated across my life.

And I'm a little, like, embarrassed to say that because now I think, I believe, like, you run for self-transcendence and you run for all kinds of things. But I didn't understand that when I was 18 years old. I loved running because it's fun. I love going up mountains. I've always loved going up mountains, right? And I did feel a spiritual connection while I did that. And you do. you get an endorphin rush when you're running fast. But like, I stopped when I wasn't good anymore, right? I went to a very good college with a very good team and I wasn't good enough. Where'd you go? Stanford, right? And so they won the NCAA title and like they're great, right? Yeah. And my freshman recruiting class was a class that went on to win NCAAs, right? So it's a bunch

of like great runners. And I wasn't fast enough. And I quit, right? And I spent a lot of time when I was writing the book, thinking about that decision. And part of it, I don't feel great about it. I think I quit. The funny thing is this, now that I realize how fast I am in my 40s, I had the talent to be on that team. Like, I could have been a very successful runner on that Stanford team. Like, I know that now. I stopped before I realized that. So why did I stop? And I stopped because I didn't love the sport for deep enough reasons, right? I stopped because I got injured, I fell behind, and then it seemed impossible to catch up. And so I quit, right? You know, had I understood the kind of the spiritual dimension, the deeper dimensions of running back when I was 18, I probably would have kept

running. And then sort of ironically, I would have probably realized that I was fast enough to be on the team. But whatever, I'm glad I didn't run on the team because it's pretty hard to be a college athlete and you miss a lot of other stuff. Like, I probably wouldn't have met my wife. So like, you know. You don't think so because you had told me hours just running. Well, right. It's also a solo sport. So much. time you spent alone. And you, but you, I would have spent my whole college, my college life would have been focused on the team, which is great.

I mean, I met someone else. Yeah, but, you know, I'm very happy with the way if I met. Yes, I know. What I'm saying is you never know how light, you never know, right, sliding doors, right? Life could have gone this way, life could have gone that way based on whatever small little, little decision that we make. And you can't, you can't unwind one thing. You can't ever unwind.

Okay, so now back to you, I'm going to actually answer your question. I've now kind of failed twice, right? I've sort of half answered the second time. so part of it was so initially I was running for part I started running because it was a bond with my father when I was 15 and I sort of discovered running for the second time it was about self-confidence and then I think in my 20s and 30s right when I started to really love it it became a form of meditation right and it became a way of it was like a connection to a different part of the world so I started this very I've worked very hard and in these intense jobs in media in New York City right and I go in and I work and I work all day, right? And I work on hard stuff and it's stressful all the time. And the way I do it is I run in and then I run home. And so running became this way of like detaching, right? Even while you live in New York City, even while you have this intense to do list, even though when you're

working, you're getting up at 4 a.m. and working, you're working to it late. Like running became this kind of release and this different way to re-center myself. So that's when I think I began to really love the sport. So how long were you running? Like how long did it take you to run to work and back? It's like, it depends on where my office has been. The longest it's ever been is eight and a half miles from my house. So then I would usually only run one direction. Most of the last 15 years, it's been about four to five miles from my house. And so it's 10 miles if you do it both ways. And do you like take a shower at the office or you don't care. You just like work. I worked at Condi Nast. Like I got to, I'm in the elevators with the editors of Vogue. Yeah, I was going to say, what are you doing then? You're all sweaty coming to the office. It was a little, it was a little awkward. I would shower at a gym nearby, right? But then you You still have to change. You shower, you change back your running clothes, and then you keep your suit at the office, and then you change in, like, the bathroom at the office. You figure out how to do it. It's a little weird. It's a little awkward. But it works. But also, were you doing it for a sense of, like, stress, like, just stress release? Like, you always have these big media jobs. Was it your, like, outlet for just stress? Well, the outlet for stress, it's also quite efficient. I mean, it's the most efficient. Right, like, because you got to get to work somehow. Right? And it's like not actually any slower than the subway. So no, but I just mean in general, like, did you become addicted to running? I don't think I ever became addicted to running, but I did love it. Every time you ran, like you actually like the process of running? Oh, yeah. I love the process of running. So I love the feeling after running. I don't love the running while I'm doing it. You like it? Oh, I love both. Oh, totally. Oh, you do? Absolutely.

Okay. So again, what is your, how do you think running? How do you think running? What did running teach you that made you successful in other parts of your life? Ah, that's a hard question. And it's also interesting, the inverse of that. What did working hard teach me about running? I think the most important lesson is the sort of the benefit of like consistent daily practice. Because what you realize with running is that if you go every day and you run like you do, right? Or you run like anybody.

You run three miles every day or four miles every day. you get better right and you do see that and because running it's just you and the clock you could actually see for sure that you're getting better right if you play tennis every day you might not realize you're getting better you probably do but it's a little harder it's very clear with running and so you learn that consistent practice gets you better right and then you go through these periods where you run a marathon you take some time to recover you start up again you're like oh my god I'm never going to be fast again. Then you just go through the same process again,

and you realize, actually, I will be as fast again, right? And so you kind of learn the consistent practice. And then you learn, like consistent practice is actually hard because some days it's hot and some days it's cold and some days it's rainy and some days, you know, you don't have a lot of time and some days your foot kind of hurts and some days you're sick to your stomach and some days there's like a bees nest, whatever, right?

Like there's always a reason not to run. But once you commit to it, then you learn to get past those reasons and you learn that you should just do it in the time available. And that's a really good habit for your job. And I'm not sure which I learned first, right? Like, if you want to get something done at your job, you just have to do it right now, right? Or, like, the best time to do it is right now, right now. Don't procrastinate, yeah.

Right? And if you have to get something done in the next hour, like, start now. Don't complain about how you only have an hour. Same thing with running. If you want to get your run in, like, and you have a window, you just go and do it. And so that's part of it. I also do think endurance translates and that, you know, I do some things in my job. where you do it all hands with the staff in a complicated situation.

You have to be on and answering questions for two hours, right? And if you make a mistake, like, you know, it might be in the news. And, like, how do you get good at that? Not that I'm as good as I could be. Probably helps to run marathons, right? Right. And doing that probably helps your marathoning, right? I too think the two things go back and forth.

Like the ability to focus hard at a job, I think helps me focus in my training, and the training helps me in the job. Now, they distract from each other too, right? Because sometimes I have a project and I go running. Maybe I should work on the project. Right. But probably the run afterwards probably made your brain way more sharp, way more focused, productive. Like, the benefits I think from the running will probably make you way more successful at your job because you're now, like, centers you probably too.

Totally. And I kind of have always worked like three shifts. Like I get up and I work and then I run and then I have my job and then I go home and I work, right? Right. In between, I like, now that kids, I spend all that time playing with my kids. But at some point they go to sleep, right? And then after they go to sleep, I tend to work, right? And when I wake up early, I tend to work.

So it's like if I just work, work, work, subway work. Right. It breaks up your day. Yeah. It breaks up your day. Yeah. So I guess what would be your big message then for people listening to the podcast, like what what they can, why did you write the book in the first place, just as a, so you like to run,

right? Big deal. I like to run, but, you know, why did you write the book? I wrote the book to try to understand more about, like, why I run and what I get from it. And I also wrote, like, the book has stories of different runners who have used running as a way to get through really complicated stuff. Right. And it's people who enter my life at different points.

So, you know, one of the characters is this guy, Tony Ruiz, who is my coach, and he used running as a way to sort of conquer his heroin addiction, right? Another is a guy named Michael Westfall who beat my dad in a race and then, like, was one place behind my son, right? And his story is the fastest run to run a marathon with Parkinson's, right? And so it's learning about how to cope with the physical decline caused by Parkinson's and how to use running to help with that. I tell the story this woman Super Beckford, who ran a store down the street from my dad. And for nine years in a row, she ran and she won the 3,100-mile race in Queens, where you run 3,000 miles around the same block. And so that's a story of using running as, like, intense self-transcendence.

This is what I love about it also. It's like, again, it's like to everybody, it's funny how running could transcend or transform people's lives in lots of different ways, right? Like, and I see the evolution. Like, I think what you said was very resonated. Like, people start for one reason, like, for self-confidence, right? Or weight loss, right? And then it turns into, like, meditation.

Totally. It becomes, like, my meditation. And how it, like, it, like, helps people who, you know, get through really hard times in life. Like, it's like, there is something about running that is very different. different than any other, I don't know, modality out there. That's right. Right?

I think that's right. It can, there are negative things. It can make you self-centered, right? You know, you can make you selfish. How? How? Because you're saying it's a lot of solo time, where you're doing a lot of, like,

stuff for yourself. And like, because people who are ultra-marathoners, you're spending, like, hours a day running by yourself. What is the joke go? How do you get, how do you find out how fast someone random marathon when you meet them at a dinner party don't worry they'll tell you right like you know that's hilarious you know there ways that it can make you a little too focused on yourself but i think for the most part why do you think that is though well because i think that's an interesting take yeah

in part because like you're not part of a team usually it's it's it's you right it's just you like part of what makes it such a good form of meditation and self-understanding is what makes you, like, potentially self-centered about it. So there's a... I guess that's kind of, you know, it's true, right? Because you're... Again, I always go back to the fact that you're alone. It's like a... It's a one-man sport type of thing, right? Right. You're like... And I mean, if I were sitting here and I wanted to kind of like, if I would make the case against running, right? A, it can make you self-centered and B, like, what is success? Like, all you're doing is pushing the other people back, right? Like,

you know, you finish one place higher. Everybody else finishes one place lower. Right. Like, you're actually, like in a team, you're with a bunch of other people and you're competing against a bunch of other people. In a marathon, like, you're competing against everybody. Everybody. Exactly.

But how is that different than swimming? It's not. I mean, well, swimming, I guess, I mean, I don't know exactly how most swimming meets are scored, but. Well, no, but it's similar, right? It's similar. I mean, swimming might be worse because you can go out and you can do it like four hours a day or five hours a day and, like, turn everything else off in your life.

Well, what do you, okay, how do you use running? So part of, like, part of the hard thing, like, one of the interesting and complex things in running, I guess we're going to go down the, like, what's hard about running bit, which is nice, because, you know, like, if my wife were here and you gave her truth serum, right, she would tell you that she's annoyed at my running sometimes. Like, what the hell? Like, you're, like, she came downstairs the other day. Like, normally I get up.

Right. I make everybody breakfast, right? Put the breakfast on the table, and then, like, they come down and we all eat. and the other day I went running because then I'll go run to work right but the other day I like went running and she came downstairs and like where's nick right and I kind of thought I'd be back before she woke up but no right and that's a minor infraction right we have a very healthy marriage we've been together forever but there are times where like you know I'll go for a long run and she'll be like what is he doing why isn't here like there's stuff going on like how many hours are we talking well if I go

I try to do it before everybody wakes up, right? So if I'm going to go run three hours, I'll go leave at six, right, or I'll go leave at five. But by the way, that's actually quite thoughtful in a way. You're not running at like 10 o'clock when everyone's running around looking for you. Of course not. Nope, don't be on. Don't say, I would be divorced by that. I mean, well, right, but I've had a lot of people sit here with me who are big ultramarathoners and all the things. And the ones that, like, who check themselves, they're doing it. They're running at four o'clock in the morning or they're doing all these things. because of this reason, right?

So part of it is like running has never been the most important thing in my life. It's always been important, but it's never been. I mean, this was part of the problem at college. It wasn't the most important thing in my life, right? You know, it's why I, you know, at my age of peak physical fitness, I came in, you know, it was, I don't know, 200th place in a marathon where if I really, like, focused, I could have come in, you know, significantly faster. It's always been something I've put a lot of time and effort.

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The main message of the book is that running can be a wonderful psychological force in your life, And it can be a way for you to understand yourself, to understand others around you, and to build habits that are great for the rest of your life. Okay, so that's the beginning. And then is it because you have a lot of time to think and it gives you a place where you can, like that's, for me, I get my best ideas when I'm running, right? Like, I don't like to do yoga, but I like to run because that's when I think of the best. Is that what you mean by that? It's a very meditative, it can be very meditative. It can, you know, bring up certain things that you, because you're, it's kind of like you're, it's kind of like you're,

You're bored. You're like alone in your thoughts for all these hours. That's when creativity lies. That's where, you know, thoughts come into your head. Is that what you mean? Like, are you a better CEO because you run? Definitely, definitely. It's a way of spurring a creative process in your head, right? So you have the possibility of thinking, right? And as you observe yourself as you run, you think more deeply about yourself and you think more deeply about your place in the world, which is why, like, in that case of Tony, who I was just mentioning, like, it was a very important factor in his ability to come back from, you know, debilitating drug addiction, right? It's a way to, like, stay centered and to think about who you are and what your place in the world is, right? And it's a way to just understand, like, complicated things in life. So my sense is that, now, running isn't the only way to do this stuff, right? Like, my point is not, you know, run, don't bike, or run, don't swim. Running is just the thing I know, right? And so it was a way for me to write about the thing I know in the deepest way I could come up with. So the first review of the book called it Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for runners. And so the idea there is like Zen and the

art of motorcycle maintenance was a way of writing about bikes, right, that would help you understand father-son relationships kind of philosophy, right? One of the books I read a lot was Barbarian Days. That's a way of like writing about surfing as a way to understand father-son relationships, how a young man develops. So this is a way of like writing about running as a way to try to get at some of the complicated things in life, including my relationship to my father, all of these different other runners coping with different barriers. Talk about the father relationship. What was the relationship, like how did running help you cope with your relationship with your father? Yeah, so to get to there. So my father, I mentioned a little bit his like interesting, you know, childhood and then.

Is he alive right now? He passed away in 2017. But his life, so he comes out of the closet in the 1980s, he's working in the Reagan administration, and he's actually plays kind of an important civil rights role. Like he's a rare outwardly gay Republican, right? And he has this position that being open about your sexuality, you know, the more people who know that gay people are everywhere, the more tolerance there will be in the world. Like I'm very, you know, I have a lot of admiration for that. But he's also kind of a maniac, and he ends up in relationship after relationship, like

hundreds of men a year who he's dating. He like proposes marriage and exchanges with like dozens of them. He ends up essentially running a male brothel in Southeast Asia, right? And so he has this and he's, you know, he's run out of money. He's kind of a tax fugitive. He's like in all of these lawsuits with everybody. Like there's all of this like incredible tension in mayhem. He's calling me up and like threatening to kill himself if I don't send him $200 so he can pay off the prostitute. He's just got like, it's a mess, right? So he's a complicated guy, like a guy who John F. Kennedy said was going to be president

ends up in Southeast Asia, like completely bankrupt with a harem, right? Like, complicated stuff. So really this is a book about your dad, but you had to like, you have to kind of couch it as something beyond because nobody knows who he is. Nobody knows who he's an amazing character, right?

And he's a very complicated character. And I have to deal with him. And I stay weirdly to many people. I stay quite close to him his whole life, even as this is going on. I love the guy deeply. We email back and forth every day, even while he's going through this. I'm kind of financially supporting him at the end, the last five or ten years of his life.

Even though he didn't raise you after five. Correct. And even though he was pretty hostile to my mother, yeah. I mean, he was a, you know, he did a lot of bad things, but he always loved me. Right. So that's like a very important part part. He always wanted the best for me. He always, like, thought the world to me.

He always supported me. He was always there for me. You know, he was never, he never didn't love me. And that's the first thing you should ask for it from my parents. So I forgave him a lot. Did you have a time when you didn't forgive him? Was there ever a moment in time when there was like estrangement? There's never a stranger.

There was anger, but there's never a strangement. Yeah. He was estranged from my sisters. Like he was, they had a more complicated. They had a harder relationship with him. But I was never estranged from him. It's funny. Even when you talk about your dad now, you can see you're very emotional.

about him. I know. It's a little hard to, yeah. To talk about him. You know, many people who met him said they never met anybody quite like him. Like, he was this just incredible, like, bundle of energy and excitement and interesting. And he's, like, so smart. And he'd be so fun to talk to him. If you met him, he were here for, like, a party or dinner or cocktails and showed up, he'd, like, showed up and he'd probably, like, break something and he'd, like, spill wine on this nice chair and, like, be kind of impossible and he'd probably like, you know, offensively hit on someone who might be straight, but he'd be convinced is gay, but he'd be awesome, right? And you'd have, like, a lot of fun with him. Yeah. Like, I kind of, this is kind of like an homage to your dad, the book. It really is.

A little bit. I mean, there's a lot, like, I don't know what he would think of it, right? He told me at one point, he said, like, you should write, like, a very candid memoir, and you should say anything you want about me. I don't know. I'll be very interested when his friends read the book and their response to it. When you sold the book to your publisher, how did you sell it? Where did you say this was? You know, it was interesting. It was a different structure back then. I said it was a book about running. I said it was a book about my time in the sport. But the initial structure was that it would be like it would trace like the stages of a marathon, right? We'll talk about the beginning of a marathon and what happened physiologically

in the first five miles, the next five miles of the marathon. And that it would layer like my life story and running and my journey from being pretty good, being very good. And then that structure just didn't work, right? It was like a good, maybe it was good for the proposal. Like it sounded cool. And I tried to write it that way and you couldn't read it. And so then it became a very different book. Well, you just said something that I find interesting,

the psychological stages of what happens when you run that long, right? How do you keep yourself from not giving up and keep on going? Okay, so at what distance or what race? Because there are different things that I've learned as I've shifted. You know, when I started writing the book, I was only a marathoner, and I became an ultramarathoner during the process. Okay, even to go from marathoner to ultra-marathoner. So this was really interesting for me.

So I was a, most of my life I've been a marathoner, right? And when I'm a marathoner, I'm out there, and I'm, like, trying to run a specific time. And the window, like, the band of possible finishing times is quite narrow, right? Like, you know when you start that there's, like, a 95% chance you run between, like, I don't know, 235 and 245. Right, you said that, yeah. You know, and so you, like, when you run an ultra, you have no idea. Like, I just ran this 100K up in the finger lakes where I just wanted to finish before the sun went down, right? So you have like a totally different, you start at 4 in the morning, and you know the sun's going to set at 7.

So you kind of want to finish in 15 hours, but who the hell knows? Not to say that's only, but you're not even, that's not 100 miles. No, it's just 100K. Not just 100K, but it's like 65 miles or so. The other, weirdly 100K is 62 miles, but the race was like 66 because I don't really wanted to mess with us. ever run a hundred miles. No, I've never run 100 miles. So, but in a race like that, so I learned a lesson the first time I did it, the first time I ran it, this race called Twisted Branch. So this was last year, I've run it twice. And I had this very important moment where I was like 30 miles in

and I've been running for like, I don't know, six hours, because you're going up and out mountains. And I was like, my God, right? I've like run longer than I've ever run before. And I still have 30 miles to go and I've got like my heart rate monitor on. I'm like looking at my pace. I'm like checking all that. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to turn my watch off. I'm going to turn my heart rate monitor off. I'm going to like forget about all that stuff. And I'm just going to think I'm a kid running in the woods, right? And I'm just going to enjoy where I am. Like I'm no longer racing. I'm no longer worried about the finish time. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not thinking about hydration. I'm not counting calories. I'm just a kid running in

the woods. And this is something that had been talked to me by that woman I mentioned earlier, superba vector who runs, you know, 3,000 miles around a block in Queens, right? Like, just think you're a kid, right? And so I kind of turned the, the racing part of my brain off. And once I did that, I was great. I was just like galloping through the forests. Right. I see mind tricks, basically. And then when I'm running, when I'm running a race, like I'm running a, I ran this 50 Miler in Connecticut in April and I was trying to set the American record right and so I knew exactly what I was trying to do and you know I was on pace through like 43 miles 44 miles and you know the last five or six I'm falling apart right and you can just like my body's in it if there's a photograph

from me coming across the finish line I just tears are down my face I just like totally deformed and wrecked and you know at that point in a race right when you're trying for a time and your body's giving out then you're like just trying to sort of focus on a mantra, like focus on, I focus on a mantra where I go, one, two, three, one, two, three, where it's right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, right, right. And it's a way of both get myself balanced, Alexander technique, right? So you're not landing too hard on one side and the other. And it's a way of just like really meditating and letting go of everything else. So sometimes I do that. If that starts to break down, I'll be like,

okay, I'm just going to run to the next tree, right? Let's see if I'll just like hold this pace to the next tree. That's not working. Maybe I'll look, like in that race, you're lap, running runners you're like seeing people in the distance okay i'm gonna i'm just i'm gonna run hard until like pass the person in blue right and you're playing like all these different mind games to stay in it right so you're like in the twisted branch race i'm dissociating right like i'm like stepping like i'm moving up to a cloud and like watching nick run through the forest right and in the like war mag that 50 miler where i'm like trying to stay on pace i'm like locking into a very narrow version of myself and both of those experiences right so when you're running a race like that 50

Myler, you like lose all awareness, right, of what's going on around you. It's this very interesting experience where it's almost like mind and matter are like one. Like there is no external, there's no thought, right? Like if you were to have a videotape of what is going on my brain, there is nothing. Right. It is just like forward motion, right? Straight ahead. As opposed to this kind of like, you know, cinematic, wonderful thing that's happening when I'm dissociating. And so sometimes you're focusing and sometimes you're dissociating when you're in like in a tense and complicated race like that. So what, so, okay, what did you, like, so how did you kind of train differently besides like the mind games? So in which period for the like, when I started

running ultras or when I like got fast in my 40s? I think I was going to ask you on both. But really, I guess now that you say so, how did you, how did you get fast, how did you become the fastest man in your 40s like how did you train differently what did you do differently so that that was like when i was 43 i met with these coaches how old are you now i'm 50 okay 50 so it was when i turned 43 it's just it was a year after my father died which i don't think is a coincidence and they looked at my training they looked at my old logs they asked me how fast i thought i could go and i was like well 243 that's what i always run yeah it's like i'd love to hold on to that and they're like okay and so I set up a fairly specific routine

where I would run seven days a week and then three days a week I would do something hard so on Tuesdays I would go and I would run basically stressing my VO2 Mac system so I'd run like 400 meter repeats 12, 400s or 1,400s or 8-800s. Thursdays I'd basically be working on my lactic threshold so I'd run like 4 by 2 miles, 3 by 2 miles

2 by 3 miles and then Saturday or Sunday I would run 20 miles right 22 miles and I just kind of kept changing the goals in each of those workouts and getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And through doing that, I both, like, improve physically and I, like, improve mentally and realized I could go faster than I thought I could go. Those coaches were kind of tricked my mind to make myself think that I could go faster than 243 pace. So 243 pace was like 615 miles, and I was terrified of running a marathon at under 6 minute miles,

which is 237 pace. And so they would have me run, like, workouts where I'd be doing short distances under 5 minutes in the hopes that it would reset my mind so I'd be less scared of going under six minutes in a marathon. And so that eventually got me to run the 229 marathon, which is like, I don't know, 541 pace, right?

And so that was step one. That was how I got like fast at marathons. Okay. And then, of course, I ran the 229 in 2019 COVID hit. Then when it was training for ultras, which I'd done maybe the last four years or so, it's similar, but obviously I'm not running as many

like 400 meter repeats on the track. But are you, what other training? do you do to kind of improve your endurance or stamina or your strength? Do you do any weightlifting or straight? Well, I'm going to rephrase that. Do you do any kind of resistance work? Yeah, no, I do some weightlifting. And now I do it with my, okay, this is the funniest thing or the one of the revelations. I was talking to physical therapist once, and he asked me, when was the last time you got hurt? And I was like, oh, it was like 12 years ago. He's like, 12 years ago. I was like, yeah,

last time I missed a workout. And he's like, that's crazy. He's like, what do you? He's like, what you do for strength training? I was like, oh, I don't do anything. He's like, what do you do for mobility? I was like, oh, I don't do anything. He's like, you just run. I was like, yeah, I just run. And he's like, but like, do you ever like move your body? I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. I play like Nerf basketball with my kids and I wrestle with my kids. I play soccer with my kids. I like, you know, do one arm push up contest with my kids. I do parkour with my kids. And he's like, well, that's why you don't get hurt, right? Right. You do all this cross training. I do all this, like, incredible cross training because I have like three sons who are active. How old are they? They're now

17, 15, and 11, right? But I play with them all the time, right? And so... Wow, it's so... It was like, that was my cross trainer. And now they're, like, now they're a little older. I, like, will go to the gym with them and I'll weightlift with them, right? Like, and I was like...

You're weightlifting? So, like, my... I was, like, supporting my 11-year-old while he's bench pressing, like, 35 pounds the other day. So you're super active. So you know what, this is actually very... I'm a big believer in this, too. You don't have to be going to an actual gym to get fit. You're doing all the...

cross training you need by doing all these like you're playing with your kids doing so much functional training also right like holding this doing that so you do do a lot of stuff yeah i do i mean and now now that they're older i do more stuff and i'll like i also like and now i don't like so we're talking on it's i think it's a wednesday and on monday my kids play for these my two younger kids play for this great soccer team this great club and i will like do workouts with them so i had a couple 11 year olds over and we were doing like glute work together right like what just like leg lifts leg drives like squats box jumps right yeah and i'm like training then working out totally yeah but i'm like training with 11 year olds right i'm not like at a crossfit gym right but but i think you're so

condition like especially with the cardiovascular and endurance and you're so like you're very lean you know so it's easier for you to do other things you know what i mean well and here's the nice thing about training with an 11-year-old, right? Like, you're not going to do so many box jumps you get hurt, right? Yeah, exactly. You're going to do, like, kind of the right amount of box jumps. Yeah, right. You're not doing, like, 500.

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So get this exclusive podcast-only offer now at Air Doctor. doctor pro.com. That's A-I-R-D-O-C-T-O-R-P-R-O-D-R-O-P-R-O-D-C-R-O-P-R-O-T-R-O-K-O-K-O-K-S. So, what does that, like, what do you do every day? Like, give me your habits. Like, I know you run, God knows. What do you eat? Are you eating, are you a vegan? Are you, do you eat animal protein? I'm a pescatarian, so I do eat some animal protein. I'm, like, pretty strict on my diet. So I get up, I have a, I don't know, I usually have like oats mixed with like

chia seeds, ground flax seed, and a bunch of nuts. And then I add some fruit. I have that with coffee and green juice for breakfast. You know, at lunch, I'll try to have like salad, vegetables. I add in a protein and at dinner, you know, kind of similar, right? So lots of green, vegetables, you know, lots of whole weeds, lots of nuts, lots of legumes. Oh, Dewey carbs. Good.

You have to with that kind of running schedule. Also, carbs are delicious. Yeah, they are good. I agree. They're very good. But you be pretty healthy. Okay, I want to talk about being the seed. Okay, so, you know, there's very few publications that are relevant anymore, as I'm sure you know, right?

Yours is probably one of the very few. How do you keep its, how does the Atlantic keep its relevance? How many people are subscribed? I want to know, like, the nitty-gritty now of the... the Atlantic. Yeah, this is my, this is what I do for it. I know. So we now have 1.35 million subscribers. We are up substantially. We were at maybe 800,000 a few years ago. So we've been skyrocketing. It's great. We've gone from losing lots of money to making a good bit of money, which is amazing. How is that through advertisers? It's actually most, I mean,

advertising has grown. So I've been to CEO for four years and advertising has grown. And if you are an advertiser or CMO listening to this podcast, please do advertise. But the principal growth has been through subscriptions. And so the way that the model has come to work is that we have been really focused on how to get someone to subscribe, right? And so there's a whole bunch of questions that come into that. Like, so what is the subscription offer? What is the meter? What is the color of the background? If somebody comes in from Google, do you push them to subscribe? If they come in from Twitter, if they come in from a newsletter. Okay, what are the places where people have real subscription propensities, right? So there's this giant math equation. And every time someone

comes to the atlantic.com, they're either a potential subscriber or they're not. And what you want to do is you want to put the payroll in front of the people who might subscribe and not in the ones who won't. And so if you can get better at that, marginally better at that every day, you make the product more successful. How can you do that? Well, you run a whole bunch of tests, you know, you test, what happens if we make the price $69? What happens if we make the price $79? Okay, what if we offer this? What if we put the gate, we allow people to read two stories a month before the gate? What if we make the gate so you can only read one story a month except on stories where there's a subscription propensity above X during the first 12 hours of the day, right? You run just all

of these tests and you build models behind it. That's what we do, right? And so building that successfully and you get really good at running advertising. And so you put advertisements on Facebook and Google driving people to particular stories and you identify the stories that people are most likely to pay to read. And you run that over and over and over again. And you run that over and over and and you look for what users want and you try to build that and magic, it's worked. What we have never done, like what's being also, I should also add, our journalists are amazing and they keep writing awesome content. So what we have done is we've taken what the journalists want to do and then we've built

the business model based on that, as opposed to what happens at a lot of media companies where they say, you know, there's a real opportunity for selling advertisements to electric car companies. Like, why don't you write some stories about electric cars, right? and then you do that and then like the journalists either say like buzz off or they write kind of bad stories about electric cars right what we say hire the best journalists in the world here's a bunch of money to do that have them write the stories they think are the absolute best and then we will try to get people to subscribe to read those stories and that model has worked fantastically at least for the last four years like who knows what happens with AI but for now it's going gangbusters so since you've been at the helm the subscription have skyrocketed. Yes. Now, I wouldn't make, that might be correlation, not cause, but it is true.

Well, do you mean, it is a correlate, it could be, but it is. Yeah. I mean, like. You were at Wired before. I was at Wired. We did great. We published all kinds of wonderful stories about tech. And then the big shift was shifting from being the editor-in-chief and being in charge

of what stories you run and reporting and writing to being the CEO, we're in charge of the product decisions, the engineering decisions, the advertising calls. How did you go from editor-in-chief of Wired to the CEO of it, of the Atlantic. I mean, why did they hire me? Yeah, because that's a different job. That's a creative job versus now you're in a business position. Yeah, so the Atlantic had a very particular need where they wanted someone who understood business and understood tech, but who also appreciated editorial. And so they couldn't have hired someone from a straight business background because the system would have kind of rejected it. Right. So then I was actually a very rare candidate. When I had

worked at the New Yorker, which was the job I had before Wired. I had been in charge of the website. I'd been charged to the iPhone app, and I'd actually been in charge of the product and engineering team, right? Because I was the only guy at the New Yorker who had, like, who knew how to fix the printer, right, and could like, you know, like plug the keyboards in. Like, I was put in charge of the tech team, right? And so I knew all this stuff. And I'd covered the tech industry. So I knew a lot about business and tech and engineering and product. And so I had a lot of the skills that kind of mapped onto the Atlantic CEO job. There's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff in this job that I'd never done before. But I had managed teams. I knew how to, you know,

I knew how to handle product managers. So I was a reasonable candidate. And then they kind of, I don't know, it took a long time for them to settle on me. Like, it was kind of a hard call. Really? I mean, I don't know. You'd have to get, you know, Lorene Powell Jobs on the podcast. But, yeah. No, like, it was a, the Atlantic's a sacred publication. Like, it was found in 1857 to stop the American Civil War by people like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harry Peter Stowe. Like, it is an important institution. It has an amazing editor in Chief Jeff Goldberg and like getting the right CEO is kind of tricky. For sure it is. Well, it seemed to have worked out for you. It worked out for me and I think they're reasonably happy. And they're reasonably happy. But what have you seen has been an uptick?

Like what do people care about the most? What gets the most traction in terms of content? You know, it's actually really wonderful where it's like stories that are deeply emotionally resonant and that people spend a lot of time working on, readers love. Like, readers love our best stuff. It's kind of wonderful, right? So if you look at the stories that drove the most subscriptions, you know, it's this, well, obviously, Jeff's story about Signal, right, where he was mistakenly included on White House's, you know, secret chat.

That drove a lot of subscriptions. Oh, wow. That was a big one. That was a big one, right? That drove a lot of subscriptions. But, like, you know, from the previous year. How many subscriptions did that story, the Signal story, drive? Many tens of thousands, you know, lots of subscriptions.

I don't have the exact number here. I bet you'll put you on the map. I bet you a lot of people didn't even know what the Atlantic was. And then they saw it in the news all the time because of that journalist from the Atlantic. And he handled it exactly right. I mean, that was the beautiful thing about it, where it wasn't like, Scoop kind of fell in his lap. And he handled it perfectly, right? And that reflected well on the institution.

Well, how did he handle it? I don't remember. I know he's had a lot of class with it, though. He did. So what happened is he's mistakenly included on the chat. What a bunch of morons. How could that even happen? Do you want my theory?

Yeah. Okay, so this is unclear, but like, this is my theory. His name is Jeff Goldberg, initials, J.G. He meets Michael Waltz at a party. Like, we have photographs of him meeting Waltz, like Waltz's business card. Like, they clearly meet Waltz is the National Security Advisor. My theory is that Waltz puts Goldberg's number in his phone under J.G, not under Jeff Goldberg, because he doesn't want his staff to know he's talking to a reporter.

So he puts his name under J.G. then they're starting the signal chat to talk about bombing the Houthis and he wants to add the trade representative because it involves the straights removes and the trade representative is Jameson Greer and so then he adds JG thinking it's James and Greer

that's my theory and then in Signal like when you look at who's in a group chat if they're in your address book they show up as how they are so it shows up as JG on Mike Walses' phone and like Pete Heggseth doesn't have Goldberg's number so it just shows up as 202 whatever his number is Right.

And so nobody realizes he's in there. That's my theory. So now there are other theories, like maybe someone stuck them on, there's some of the fat fingers, maybe who knows. Any case, that's my working theory. He gets in the chat and he starts to see what's going on. He's like, what the hell, right? And then he stays in for a while because he thinks it might be a hoax.

He sees what's happening. And then he leaves the chat when he realizes they're discussing classified information and he shouldn't be there, right? So that is actually the proper thing to do. He left the chat? He left the chat. Right? Because, you know, clearly he shouldn't have been in it.

True, but curiosity, you know, like, and just, you know, being a voyeur. Well, curiosity versus espionage act, right? I mean, you weigh these two things against each other. Okay, you write espionage, curiosity, very similar, but different. He leaves the chat, and then, you know, he writes up a story because it is in the national interest to publish the story. But he's very careful to leave out, like, secret details, and to leave out, details of the specific raid and to leave out details of things they wrote. He writes the story and then as a good reporter should, he calls the White House and says, hey, here's the story

we're going to publish. Like, that's what you do. They're like, you call the person. You don't just publish it and blinds it. And you want it because you call them because you might have something wrong, right? Or there might be something where you need their opinion in. And then they say, oh, yeah, that's true. Yep, go ahead, you know, accurate. So then he writes the story, right? Everything done by the book, right? Like, we've called our sources, we've handled it, you know, admirable. We've taken into account national security. Like, Jeff's kid, like, is in the military. Like, Jeff cares a lot, you know, about the military,

cares about national security. Like, we were founded as a magazine to protect America. Like, sometimes we don't agree with Donald Trump, but we are a magazine in favor of America. And so he does it. And then the White House at first is like, yep, it's true. And then for reasons that are beyond me, and again, I'm just the CEO, they start to say the story's not true.

And like, ah, no, no, there's nothing classified in that chat. like we don't know what the Atlantic is talking about like they're making stuff up like there's nothing in the chat that was classified because remember we haven't published the screenshots right so then they're like wait what like what why are they doing this like they've already can normally what happens in journalism is someone denies the story and then eventually admits that it's true right they don't do it the other way around admit that it's true and then like weirdly deny it right and so they're now denying the story which is banana cakes and so then like jeff and Shane harris his code are like well i guess we're obligated to publish the whole thing and so then

we put all the transcripts online we put the screenshots online afterwards the second day and so you know that's the story at no point right he's and he's always like he's always checking everything is always 100% accurate everything is to the book like calling your sources like you know, even if someone is denouncing you, right, and even if someone is lying about you, you still call them because you can't be wrong on your side, right? You have to be as accurate and honest as fact check as you can be. So he does everything exactly by the book. He does everything exactly the way a reporter is supposed to do it. And so the story ends up reflecting really well on us. So it's a benefit to the Atlantic. Like he gets, like the scoop falls out of the sky, right?

Literally, yeah. Like literally falls out of the sky onto his phone while he's at like the safeway parking lot. But, you know, like, he handles it perfectly. So it reflects really well on the Atlantic. So who denied it? Was it that woman, the press, what's her name, the blonde lady? Yeah, she definitely, she definitely, Caroline Levitt. She definitely, she denied it and denounced us. I think she, I think she called us, you know, like a failing magazine. Maybe it was either her or Trump that says that we're like a failing magazine about to go to business, which we're clearly, like, I run the P&L. Like, we're actually doing great. Like media is having a hard time.

We might go out of business next year. But right now we are like crushing it financially. Like we're doing better than we've ever done. So they're making stuff up about our finances, which annoys me as the finance guy. Of course it does. But then like Hegsuss is out there. Nikki Haley's out there saying there's nothing classified in it, which is nonsense. The whole thing is a total, how that even happened.

I know that what your hypothesis makes perfect sense, right, how that could have happened. In any case, why the hell are they on signal talking about this stuff? It's so, like, A, they shouldn't be on signal, right? Like, they should be using, like, a skiff, right? Like, their government officials planning an attack. Like, not on their phones, not on signal. Duh. Two, even if they are on signal or even if they're in a skiff,

they shouldn't be, like, boasting and BSing about it. Like, there are details that Hegg Seth is putting there that he has no need to. He's just trying to, like, impress the folks in the chat. Like, it is beyond me. It was so weird. It's beyond. But this is just like, but it's like a gaggle of clowns, really, who are doing all of this stuff. And then when the story broke, like when we published our first story, what they should have done is like, you know, this was a mistake. We've cleaned it up. We've made it so we won't do signal. Right. Like, you know, what this showed is there was a good conversation. But yes, the Atlantic is correct. Instead of like making it so much worse by saying, well, there's no classified information lying about us, lying about the conversation, right? Like they shot themselves in the foot there.

yeah i would say so are you guys then not this is obvious are you guys not allowed to be in the press room in the white house yeah i actually don't know the exact policies right now they have not come after us like jeff went to the white house and interviewed trump afterwards like really yeah i don't want to speak out of turn because i don't manage the journalist but we have like gone there and like trump calls our reporter called our reporter michael shere and ashley park at like two in the morning one night like from his cell phone like he still cares about the Atlantic. Well, of course. Well, listen, it's a very prestigious magazine. But why is he calling these people at 2 o'clock in the morning from his cell phone? Does he think they're going to answer

the phone? Did they answer the phone? No, it was a voicemail. Or like it was like a just a missed call from, you know, you wake up and it's like. Donald Trump called you at 2 a.m. Right. Like, he might be on the phone with Ashley Parker right now. I have no idea. Did he not sleep this man? He is, I think he sleeps different hours. Is he like a, you know, what are those, those, not Dracula, you know, vampires that they don't sleep during the day. By the way, not for nothing, this man is like 80-something and the guy doesn't sleep. The guy has more energy. He eats McDonald's all day. Like, I think that I'm doing things wrong. I mean, I should have his energy and his stamina. Well, he has this theory, right, that I don't know whether you agree with it, but that

I believe he stated this publicly multiple times, but that that humans have a fixed number of heartbeats. And so the trick is to not use those heartbeats up. Like when you're born, there's a whole bunch people who believe this, right? That like every animal has like a similar number of heartbeats, that if you look at the number of times in elephant's heartbeats, it kind of matches that of a mouse, and that humans are kind of in the middle, and so if you use your heartbeats, you're likely to die sooner.

Now, I disagree with this hypothesis. Really? He has stated this. Yeah, it's a pretty interesting theory. You'll have to talk to a physiologist. He may have stated it, like, haphazardly, he may say that's not what he really believes in. I don't want to misquote the president of the United States of America.

But, like, it is a theory that I've heard from multiple people. I don't think it's correct, to be honest. But he's doing, like, he's clearly vigorous. Clearly. So does that, by that hypothesis, does that mean if I work, you run and I run, we work out a lot of our hearts beat, our hearts are beating faster. Are we going to die faster? Okay, so this, okay, so we'd have to pull out a calculator, but it's actually a pretty interesting calculation. Okay.

It depends, right? Because what happens when you exercise, your resting heart rate goes down. Right. And so let's say your resting heart rate goes down 10 beats a minute, right? Because you exercise a lot. So it goes from, say, 55 to 45. So then 23 hours a day, you're saving 10 beats a minute, right? For one hour a day, you're going up, you know, 100 beats a minute, right?

So you have to do the math. Right. So like it's a deli, it's like a balancing. It's actually pretty close, right? I'm not sure whether it depends on how much exercise reduces your resting heart rate and your sort of your average walking heart rate. and it depends how much your heart rate goes up when you exercise. I think probably like an hour of day of exercise is like the optimal amount.

If you want to like keep your total lifetime heartbeats, you know, keep it down. So an hour a day. So someone like you or people who are doing ultras for 12 or 13 hours a day. Well, that's not. The fact that you're even alive at 50, you should have been dead like at 37. Well, this gets to another really interesting debate, which is, is there a point at which too much exercise is bad for your heart, right? Like this is, so the heartbeat debate is kind of like a silly, fun one,

but this one is a serious one, right? And there are very smart cardiologists who believe that there is a limit, right? And there are very smart cardiologists who believe that if you look at the data and you look at studies of like ultra-endurance, finished skiers, the more exercise, the more time, the longer you live. It's clear that, like, exercise to the extent that I do it does some bad things. Like it increases my odds of atrial fibrillation, right? It does increase, it does some bad things to the heart, but it also does so many other good things

that it may be a net benefit. Right, right balance itself up. Right. I kind of think it's a net benefit, but of course I think that because I love running, right? Right. Well, you could justify, anyone can justify anything. But you could find some smart cardiologists to, like, scare the hell out of ultra runners if you wanted to. Yeah, I don't, I'm actually, I believe that, though.

That I can believe. I mean, there's a lot of people that I know who are, like, stupid fit. Like, they play tennis five hours a day. like perception like kind of like from the outside like optics would say that they were really fit and they dropped out of a heart attack when they're like 45 yeah and maybe it's because of that that whole thing that you just said right like they've used up their ticks or it's because it is it's actually can be counterintuitive like sometimes like more like more is not like or whatever like more is actually more is less not more is more right I mean in there

there are also a couple of other like additional hypotheses so one it's like all of that like the hearts of muscle building the muscle like maybe that's not totally great in every way two a lot of people when they exercise a lot they use that as a justification right like I can have the fries right because like engine burns hot you can put anything in the engine but that's not true at all right like you know I can have a drink because I exercise hard day I have a second drink I have a third drink right I'll be able to run it off in the morning right and so exercise can create good habits I'm not going to drink at all because I have to run in the morning or can create bad habits, right? I'm going to run in the morning so I can drink, right? And so I think a lot of super fit people

actually have a bunch of terrible habits. I was listening to your podcast with Lance Armstrong, right? And he was, and you were talking about like he ate four hot dogs and had he's like, and I had a diet cook. I was like, what the hell? Totally. And he doesn't, he's a perfect example of this. But I meet people like Lance a lot where a lot of my, a lot of friends of mine who are like super athletes, like Lance level, just not in biking. and I go out with them and they're not doing all these the crazy stuff. They're not biohacking

their lives to death. They're actually like, they're like eating kind of much more freely. They're like exercising but they're not like frantic and crazy about it. They're more balanced in their life. To be honest with you, what I want to say is I actually think that's actually more healthy

because I think anything extreme like is what it does to your mental the psychology that goes on in your brain is actually why it's detrimental more so to your body and over-exercising like people, I'm just going to...

How about this? Because I over-exercise for sure because I do it because if I didn't I would be like a lunatic. Yeah. But I've broken down my body. I have ankle problems. I have like a knee problem,

you know what I mean? Like I have like probably like my cortisol is high versus people I know who don't really do much and they're probably way healthier in the inside. I may look better, like fitness, I may look more fit, but my insides are probably much more

fucked up than somebody else's who kind of like casually does some walking and some yoga. You know what I mean? Totally. My grandfather, my maternal grandfather lived in 97, and he smoked a lot, he drank a lot. And his philosophy was this amazing philosophy, which is like, what you should do is never exercise except occasionally exercise, like, really hard. Like, play, like, tons of tennis or hike a really hard mountain or, like, go skiing, like, crazy, right? Yeah.

And so he lived this awesome life, and he had so much fun. And he, like, sport was just source of joy for me, mountaineered and never stressed about it. I, like, he wasn't taking his resting heart rate when he woke up in the morning. He had a very healthy relationship to it. Right. Also, like, there are genetic elements, right? Like, I just had my blood work done, and I have, there's a genetic component of heart disease risk, which is your LPA, right? And mine is massive, right?

It's like in the 99th percentile of bad, right? Wow. And so I have like a huge genetic risk of a heart attack, which I wouldn't have known and which could like wipe me out despite all of my running, you know, when I'm in my a much younger age than you would expect. So there's all kinds of reasons that are like totally independent of how we train that could, you know, mean the end of us. I know what also I find interesting about the running part is the burning of all the lean

muscle mass. Yeah. Right? Like I, you know, whenever I look at runners who are like crazy runners extreme, they never, they're like soft fat, you know what I mean? They don't have like tone in their body. Well, this, okay, so back to like, this guy, it's kind of fun talking about like some of the bad things about running.

Like, it can also like, you know, it can make you in a way anorexic, right? Yeah. You know, there's this coach. When I, when I showed up at Stanford, right, to join the cross country team, man, I'm a pretty lean guy. He sends this thing, right? And it's like, you should weigh two pounds. per inch, right?

Sounds fine, right? And I was like, okay, cool, whatever. And I was like, okay, so I'm six foot one. That's like 73 inches, so I should weigh 146 pounds. I went 165, right? So I was 19 pounds overweight, right? Skinny guy. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm 19 pounds overweight for the Stanford cross-country team.

How much you weigh right now, by the way? Like 155. So I'm still like nine pounds overweight. Wow. You're so skinny. Yeah. And like, but I'm just like super overweight. Now, he would never say that now because you're not allowed to.

Only because it's not PC to say it. But he still thinks it, right? And everybody knows he thinks it, right? So Mark Wetmore, who was the coach of Colorado Buffalo's, one bunch of national titles, told his runners that they should look like a skeleton with a condom on. Right? That's what he told the guys, right? That's not healthy.

It's really not healthy for 18-year-old girls to be told that, right? Terrible. Right? And it's really psychologically unhealthy. And you get, like, this is why women, so many of women runners have, like, all these broken bones and they don't have their periods. and all these horrible things happen, right? It can be a very destructive sport

if you focus on the sort of the weight loss element. On the other hand, like my coach at Stanford has coached a ton of Olympians. Mark Wetmore coached a lot of winners. Like that is the thing they are doing. Like one of the ways that you can win is be phenomenally skinny, which is potentially unhealthy. Well, by the way, yes, exactly.

So there's like that, it's like a very delicate balance, right? because the truth is, if you're coaching at such a high level, you obviously want the team to have every advantage to win, right? And I hate to say it, but for running, well, for a lot of things, like, it does matter how much you weigh, right? Because if you are small and thin, you'll be faster. Yeah. Right?

It's just, it's just physics. Yeah. Right? Like biodynamic, it's what it is. So, like, you can't really, like, you have to understand from the perspective of you're hiring someone to win for you, right? Or else you'd have a bunch of, like, body positive people there, like, hiring whoever to do it and you will never win a thing.

Right. I mean, you'd do better at Ultras, right? I remember my wife came to a mountain race I did. And at the end, she said, the funniest thing. She, like, watches the finish. And at the end, she's like, you know, Nick, the people who beat you in this race, they look a lot more normal than the people who beat you in your other races. Really? Why is that?

So this is a mountain race. To be a great mountain runner, you need like a little extra muscle mass. Strength, yeah, you do need strength. You're literally like pulling yourself up rocks. Well, it's different. Well, that's something every sport for like running, it makes sense why you have to be like very like, you know, thin. And I was going to say, frail looking, but I don't mean it that way. Yeah, no, I know you mean.

I mean very like lean. But look at the people who win the 100-mileers, right? They don't look like the winners of the marathon, right? like and in fact the women right the women who women actually are better than men once you get up about like 200 miles right in part because they store extra fat extra fat and extra energy yeah you know and genetically are set up to do that because you know childbirth is so hard and take so long right that is one hypothesis so women have an advantage when you get to really really really really long races yeah that's actually true so they have a huge disadvantage in like the mile and the

for lots of reasons, like testosterone levels. I was going to say a lot of this hormones. This is why running is not a great sport for women, though, in general, when you're doing the sprint, like the track, because of the hormones. By the way, that's not even, it's not just running. It's like, look at gymnastics, right? Over-exercising, over-excerting yourself at, like, for hours and hours and hours a day is hormonally not great for you.

Right. It totally screws up a lot of these. It screws up your whole body, like. These women, and they become, like, I tell the story, one of the runners I read, I read about five runners, and I interviewed tons and tons of different runners. I chose five because they each tell something interesting. But one of them is this woman, Julia Lucas, who, you know, starts running in high school, realize she's this incredible talent, you know, goes to college.

But just like she breaks her leg like seven times running, in part because of like, you know, all of the pressure that's put on these women for the intensity they have to train while you're going through this period of growth. And, you know, I mostly tell her story, I tell her story for lots of reasons. one is like she finishes college and it's so hard to make a living but she's so focused so she's homeless while she's like training as an elite runner right she lives in like you know forest park in Portland right and like brings her stuff when it rains like puts her stuff in a bag and like rents a little locker at the train station right and so you know while she's training and

she becomes an elite and she becomes the best miler in the country right by then she like has a sponsor but she has to go through this period of years where she's just injured all the time and her body's broken and she's homeless and goes through it And then, you know, I tell the story of her, she comes as close as you can come to making an Olympic team without making it, right? She runs this race where she either has to come in the top three or have the third place finisher run slower than 1520. And she comes in fourth and like pulls the third place finisher to a 1519.9, right? Like you cannot have a closer miss of the Olympics. It's like the most incredible race to watch.

And she's just, she's an awesome person. And she's so smart and she's so reflective on this race. But I love the story of like how. And then she has this very like stoic, amazing interview afterwards where she's like, well, I had no pain, no pain at all. And she's like this very deep philosophy about running and why she does and what she's trying for. But she also the whole time is struggling with some of the questions we've been talking about,

about like, how much do we run to like optimize ourselves and to like be the perfect machine and how much do we run for the spiritual release? And she has this constant tension between these two. So I tell her story for all those reasons. That's a great story. Yeah, it's really, she's an amazing, an amazing person. That's a good one to choose, actually. Yeah.

All right, my dear, Nick, the book is called The Running Ground, Nicholas Thompson. Thank you for being on the show. That was so much fun to talk. We covered a lot of ground. Yeah, I did not think we were going to get quite so deep into Signal Gate, but I'm very happy that we did. Oh, my God, I'm so happy we did, too. I love that. I'm going to clip that.

I think it's so interesting. Yeah. Are there any other, like, juicy little bits you want to tell us? I've worked on a lot of interesting stories in my life, like a lot of interesting reporting. Give me one story. What was the most interesting thing that you've ever worked on? I had a very long friendship with Stalin's daughter. I had a very long friendship with Stalin's daughter. And for years, we wrote letters. And I couldn't publish it while she was alive, but it's a story of a woman who grows up in the Kremlin. And he has this intense relationship with

their father where her father sends her boyfriend to the gulag, right? Like a lot of people have like father issues where they don't like the boyfriend. They're normally not sent to the gulag by Stalin. Oh my God. So she has some problems with her father but also loves him and it's like he's devoted to her in a way. Her mother commits suicide because she's married to Stalin. So this woman grows up and she's so smart. She's so interesting and she's like so creative. She flees. She comes to America. It's a big sensation, right? And then she kind of disappears. And so when I I discover her and find her and start writing her letters. She's living in this like old folk home anonymously in Wisconsin.

And I at the time was writing a book about the Cold War. And I was writing about this character, George Kennan, who she had been friends with. And so she responds to me. She gets interview requests all the time because she's Stalin's daughter. But I write to her not to ask her about Stalin, but to ask her about George Kennan. And so she starts writing me back. And she's so smart. And she's observed like everything about Kenon.

And she sees things that nobody else had seen. And so we become friends and we write these hundreds of letters. And then eventually she starts talking about her life and her loves and her ambitions and what she missed and, you know, her failures in life and her aspiration. Sometimes it gets really mad at me, right? And she denounces me. And so she's never going to talk to me. And then she'll start writing me letters again. And so the story of my friendship with her was one of the more fun things I've ever worked on.

That is really interesting. It was a crazy story. I could only write it after she had died, but I published that in the New York or maybe 10 years ago. That's a great one, too. Yeah. Tell me one more. I wrote a really interesting story at the end of my time at Wired. and I loved to hike

and I had heard about a guy who had hiked on the Appalachian Trail and he had been hiking for months and he'd hike from New York to Florida and then he'd been found dead in a tent emaciated in a tent and no one knew who he was and so I wrote the first story

and everybody in the trail knew his name was mostly harmless but he'd used cash when he'd bought things to the stores he'd never revealed his own name and so I published the story and I was like look this will be in Wired and like someone will know he is like someone had called me because on the trail he had said he was a coder

right he had told somebody he was an engineer and like all these people were looking for him and so I published the story in Wired and millions of people read it and no one knows who he is and no one can figure it out and so I start getting all these tips these Facebook groups are formed

and there's like hundreds of people going through every clue and like looking at photographs and like they do DNA analysis to try to trace his like trace his relatives and like can they figure out like where he's from So then the DNA analysis reveals that he's, like, from a family in Louisiana. So I start buying ads on Facebook in Louisiana driving to my story so that people will read it and identify who this guy might be.

And then, like, finally, after, like, months of tips and red herrings and craziness and all these hunters, like someone is like, wait, that's my old friend, Vance. And it turns out it's this guy named Vance Rodriguez who had been estranged from his parents, so they weren't looking for him. him. Like, no one was looking for him. He'd, like, been cruel. He's, like, kind of a bad guy. He'd, like, been cruel to his girlfriend. And so he had disappeared to start over, and no one cared, right? No one was looking for him. It's a kind of a sad story. But then he turned himself into this, like, saintly character on the trail who everybody loves. So it's this, like, missed opportunity of total reinvention where this guy who is a dark force in life becomes this beloved character. This is why so many people are hunting for him because they're in love with him. He's, like, this very handsome, like, wonderful guy. And then it's revealed that he, like, kind of beats up his girlfriends and is cruel. And so it's like this incredible, like, cognitive dissonance that all these people have when they realize, wait, the guy they were hunting for isn't Prince Charmy. And so I wrote the first story, it's called The Search for Mostly Harmless, and then the second story about his life.

So those were two of the last stories I wrote It Wired. I think that's so exciting. I love that. That's so interesting. Yeah, it's a pretty interesting tale. Yeah. I love this. Well, thank you for being. Listen, I think this, I had a great time talking.

to you. So thank you. That was so much fun. It's amazing. It's great. So much fun. And good luck with this book. I'm sure it's a really nice read. And you guys have to check it out The Running Ground by Nicholas Thompson. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.