Nicholas Thompson

Nicholas Thompson is the CEO of The Atlantic. In 2022, The Atlantic earned the top honor for magazines, General Excellence, at the National Magazine Awards; earned its second Pulitzer Prize in as many years; and was named Digiday’s Publisher of the Year. Previously, Thompson was editor-in-chief of WIRED where he helped transform the business model and had a front-row seat covering some of the most important technological stories of our time. Thompson wrote many features for the publication, including a cover story on Facebook that became one of the most read pieces in the magazine’s history and has been cited multiple times in Congress. He also wrote a story about a missing hiker who erased his digital identity, which will soon be a movie on the Discover Network. He began a daily series of videos called “The Most Interesting Thing in Tech” that has gained him two million followers on social media and led him to be named the fourth most influential person on LinkedIn, between Richard Branson and Justin Trudeau. He has spoken to audiences about technology all over the world and in 34 states.

Thompson is a former contributor to CBS News, where he regularly appeared on CBS This Morning and CBS Sunday Morning. He is a cofounder of The Atavist, a National Magazine Award–winning publication and content management system that was sold to WordPress in 2018. He is currently building a new social media platform called Narwhal to encourage people to engage in positive and productive conversations.

Thompson previously served as editor of NewYorker.com. Before The New Yorker, Thompson was a senior editor at WIRED, where he assigned and edited the story that was the basis for the Oscar-winning film Argo. In 2009, his book “The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War” was published to critical acclaim. Thompson has long been a competitive runner; in 2021, he set the American record for men 45+ in the 50K race. He is currently writing a book about the ways the mind of a runner works.