Nicholas Thompson

“You take someone who's an even better writer, take John McPhee and ask AI to write like John McPhee. It doesn't sound anything like John McPhee, right?”

“We were founded to help create conversations to help prevent a civil war, and Martin Luther King published a letter from a Birmingham jail. Like, there is something important about keeping this publication going.”

“When I was at Wired, we ran an affiliate revenue business. So we would like review headphones, buy headphones and we'd get cut. It's great. Probably a good fit for Wired.”

“Remnick used to say this... your job isn't, if the writer can only jump over a six foot bar, your job is not to try to get them over a seven foot bar. Your job is to get them over that six foot bar.”

“For a certain class of writer, you know, they can get paid a lot more at Substack. They're far smaller reach, far smaller audience, but you can make a lot more money.”

“Derek Thompson went to Substack... he was a number one bestselling author. And he's like friends with the folks who are the top people on Substack, which allows him to get in the recommendation engine.”

“I don't know if there's a single sentence I've written in my life that is as good as any sentence that Anthony Lane has written. Like there's just a quality of writing that is distinct and that AI can't match.”

“When I was hired, you know, the mandate was you were losing money now and we're not going to lose money... I do think it's a gift because it forces a kind of discipline.”

“Finley was doing kind of what I do with the writers, which is like, okay, like what is Nick's skill? What is Nick good at? What are Nick's weaknesses? Where can we improve him? And how can we do that without breaking him?”

“I feel like that's kind of where Kilian Jornet is. He's the world's greatest mountain runner. And like people who race him hate it because they're always like, I'm trying to win and he's just having fun in the mountains. And then he wins.”

“Jeff Goldberg, the editor-in-chief... you've been this elite runner for like 30 years and you've won three races. Right. I'm like, yeah! There are 40,000 people in a marathon. One wins, 39,999 don't.”

“Participants: Jackson Dahl, Nicholas Thompson”

“You take someone who's an even better writer, take John McPhee and ask AI to write like John McPhee. It doesn't sound anything like John McPhee.”

“People who race him hate it because they're always like, I'm trying to win and he's just having fun in the mountains. And then he wins.”

“Nicholas Thompson describes the organization's successful turn to profitability under Laurene Powell Jobs, its editorial excellence, and its identity as an institution worth defending”

“Jackson Dahl and Nicholas Thompson are participants in the Dialectic podcast, episode 45.”