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Jim VandeHei

Co-founder & CEO, Axios

Search every verified Jim VandeHei interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Jim VandeHei, co-founder and CEO of Axios, has been promoting his new book, *Simplify: Do 50 Percent More with 50 Percent Less*, co-written with Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz. In interviews, he has described the book's framework as "Confront, Delete, Amplify," which encourages individuals and companies to identify and eliminate wasteful tasks—citing data that people waste about 25% of their workweek—to focus on higher-value activities. He has also discussed applying this philosophy at Axios, including shuttering the company's app and holding meetings with the subject line "Let's Kill S***." VandeHei has frequently commented on the impact of artificial intelligence on media and business. He has stated that he believes the open web will "largely die" within two to five years as large language models become the primary way people access information, and that everyone will soon have access to "Einstein-level" intelligence. He has argued that human-created, differentiated content will rise in value as a result, and that AI will not replace the unique abilities of human journalists. He has also described the current period of AI adoption as a "messy middle," noting that the technology is expensive and difficult to integrate into existing systems, while predicting that AI spending will dominate the next year of business investment. Additionally, he has expressed concern about a potential political backlash against AI, suggesting that one or both major parties could call for shutting it down. He has also criticized the Trump administration's decision to ban Politico, CNN, and MSNBC from White House grounds, calling it a "stupid, sad, terrible precedent."

Recent appearances

  • The Algorithms Broke Our Brains, Could AI Fix Them? With Jim VandeHei of Axios

    October 15, 2026 · 📺 This is Gavin Newsom

    Axios co-founder and CEO Jim VandeHei joins the show to talk through how AI is changing the media industry, why he rejects the simple solutions floated by today’s politicians and how he’d handle saving legacy media institutions. He then shares his philosophy on how to manage one’s time and business effectively as articulated in his new book book Simplify:Do 50 Percent More with 50 Percent Less co-written with his Axios co-founders, Mike Allen & Roy Schwartz 00:00 An Era As Significant As The Great Depression 2:46 Trust Loss In Institutions 6:09 The Challenge Of Breaking News In An AI Wor…

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  • The truth about AI at work

    September 25, 2026 · 📺 Axios and Jim VandeHei

    Over the past few weeks, Axios CEO Jim VandeHei has talked with dozens of other CEOs about how they’re implementing AI across their companies. In this video, he breaks down five big takeaways from those conversations, including the challenges of AI adoption, the potential it could unlock, and the massive amount of effort and spending required to make that potential a reality.

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  • Understanding The Threat & Opportunity Of AI w/ @axios CEO Jim VandeHei

    September 22, 2026 · 📺 Mo News and Axios

    How worried should we be about AI, and who should be making the decisions about its future? Mosh sits down with Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Politico and Axios and current CEO of Axios, for a wide-ranging conversation about the technology reshaping our lives. Jim explains why he takes warnings from AI researchers seriously, what’s at stake in the race with China, and what AI could mean for jobs, journalism and American politics. They also get into Jim’s new book, Simplify: How to Do Less and Get More Done. Jim shares how he’s applied that idea at Axios and in his own life: identifying the wor…

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  • Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei calls Trump's press ban "stupid, sad, terrible precedent"

    September 21, 2026 · 📺 CBS News

    Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei found a silver lining in the ongoing AI doom-and-gloom and co-wrote a modern survival guide called "Simplify: Do 50% More with 50% Less." Vandehei joins "The Takeout" to discuss the book, artificial intelligence and the Trump administration. CBS News 24/7 is the premier anchored streaming news service from CBS News and Stations that is available free to everyone with access to the internet and is the destination for breaking news, live events, original reporting and storytelling, and programs from CBS News and Stations' top anchors and correspondents working loca…

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  • Axios CEO: How to Get Ahead of Everyone Who's Using AI

    September 19, 2026 · 📺 NEW ECONOMIES and 2 more

    Jim VandeHei, Co-Founder and CEO of Axios and Co-Founder of Politico, joins us to explain why he believes the open web will largely die within 2 to 5 years as LLMs become the main way people get their information, why unique, human-created content will soar in value once everyone has access to Einstein-level AI, and how his Simplify framework helps people delete the busy work that eats up roughly 25% of every week. Timestamps (0:00) Meet Jim VandeHei (2:11) The State of Media Today (4:09) Will We Have Trust Scores? (6:48) Are We in a Better Place Today? (11:08) How Will Creators Be Compensat…

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  • Axios CEO: Delete 25% of work that's pure waste (with Jim VandeHei)

    September 16, 2026 · 📺 Rapid Response and 3 more

    AI isn't simplifying your life… Yet. It's mass-producing more options, more decisions, and more noise. Axios CEO Jim VandeHei returns to Rapid Response to make the case that the antidote isn't a better productivity app, it's a ruthless, three-part system he calls Confront, Delete, Amplify. VandeHei shares what he's learned from running Axios by these principles, including calling a leadership meeting with the subject heading "Let's Kill S***," and why he shuttered the Axios app despite years of internal resistance. He also reveals his candid read on the midterms and what they mean for business…

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  • How Do You Run a Company When You Can’t See Six Months Ahead? - with Axios CEO Jim VandeHei

    September 15, 2026 · 📺 Beyond the Prompt

    Jim VandeHei, co-founder and CEO of Axios, joins Beyond the Prompt to share how he’s leading Axios through AI, from becoming an “AI lab rat” to rethinking how the company works. He joins us around the launch of his new book, Simplify: Do 50% More With 50% Less, co-authored with Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz. Jim's book: https://smartbrevity.com/simplify “Confessions of an AI Lab Rat”: https://www.axios.com/2026/06/09/ceo-... Axios: https://www.axios.com/ Jim's LinkedIn:   / jimvandehei   00:00 Intro: Predictions for the future 00:46 Meet Jim VandeHei 01:06 Becoming an AI Lab Rat 04:21 How Axio…

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  • Axios co-founders on simplifying life and work

    September 14, 2026 · 📺 CBS Mornings

    Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen join "CBS Mornings" to talk about their new book, "Simplify: Do 50% More with 50% Less," and offer tips for decluttering your work and life. Each weekday morning, "CBS Mornings" co-hosts Gayle King and Nate Burleson bring you the latest breaking news, smart conversation and in-depth feature reporting. "CBS Mornings" airs weekdays at 7 a.m. on CBS and stream it at 8 a.m. ET on the CBS News app. Subscribe to "CBS Mornings" on YouTube:    / cbsmornings   Watch CBS News 24/7: https://cbsnews.com/live/ Download the CBS News app: https://cbsnews.com/m…

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  • Why Nobody Trusts the News — And How to Fix It

    September 06, 2026 · 📺 Prof G Markets

    Today on the Prof G Markets Founder Series, Ed Elson sits down with Jim VandeHei, Co-Founder and CEO of Axios, to discuss how AI is reshaping the media industry, what role it should play in newsrooms, and why he believes AI will ultimately make human journalism more valuable. They also discuss how distrust in the media influenced his decision to launch Axios, where he draws the line between journalism and commentary, and what he makes of today’s rapidly changing media ecosystem. Timestamps: 00:00 Preview 00:29 Ad Break 01:18 Intro 02:23 Interview with Jim VandeHei 02:33 How was it like creati…

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  • Jim VandeHei, Axios | Confront. Delete. Amplify.

    August 31, 2026 · 📺 The Deciders and Jim VandeHei

    Jim VandeHei is co-founder and CEO of Axios, and before that he co-founded Politico — twice building some of the most influential media companies in Washington. In this episode, he argues AI backlash is quietly building into a real political fault line and walks through the simplification framework behind his new book, Simplify: Do 50% More with 50% Less. Become an insider: sign up for early access to every new episode of The Deciders before it's public at www.deciders.show/subscribe This episode sponsored by: American Petroleum Institute American Investment Council American Chemistry Counc…

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  • Axios’ Jim VandeHei on Smart Brevity, Media & the Future of News

    June 15, 2026 · 📺 Matt Britton

    How is Axios changing the way people consume news, advertising, and business communication? In this episode of The Speed of Culture Podcast, Matt Britton sits down with Jim VandeHei, Co-Founder and CEO of Axios, to discuss media consumption, Smart Brevity, journalism, advertising, leadership, trust in media, and how companies can communicate more effectively in a world overloaded with information. Jim shares his journey from political journalist at The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post to co-founding Politico and later Axios. He explains why the rise of the internet created an oppo…

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  • A year as an AI lab rat: Mind-blowing and messy

    June 09, 2026 · 📺 Axios and Jim VandeHei

    Mike Allen interviews Axios CEO Jim VandeHei about his year as an “AI lab rat,” inputting copious amounts of personal and business data, and seeing firsthand the superhuman possibilities and real workplace limitations. Jim explains why he thinks AI is more powerful than most people realize, why it is still messy inside companies, and what the experiment revealed about work, health, anxiety, and the future of AI-empowered employees. Timestamps: 00:00 - AI should challenge your thinking 00:37 - Why Jim became an AI lab rat 01:19 - What AI knows about Jim 03:53 - How Jim uses AI agents 05:49 -…

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Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“I think that algorithms have been terribly misleading to people. And I think media in some ways is very misleading because people naturally have a negativity bias. And media has a negativity bias in that it just more people read those stories, watch those stories. And so I think people get a false portrait of what this country actually is because of what's on their screen. It feels more hopeless. It feels more trivia”

“I think we're living history in a fairly dramatic way in that I feel deep in my bones that unlike any period in my life, I'm 55, so tiny bit younger than you, not much. I feel like we're headed into a year or two that we'll be thinking and writing about a hundred years from now. And the reason it I feel that way is mainly because of artificial intelligence. A little bit because of politics, but mainly because artific”

“I think this is going to be one of the wildest periods in American history. I think we'll look back that it'll be as big as enormous as a civil war, as the Great Depression. Not that you'll have that level of chaos or starvation, but just you're going to have so much change so quick and it's very unknowable what happens on the other side. And my hope and belief is that really smart people take this seriously. We figu”

“I think we're about to go through a platform shift. I think sometime in the next, you know, two to five years, the open web will largely die. Meaning, you're probably not going to go to www whatever to get your information. I think you're going to probably get most of your information in the not too distant future from an LLM. So from a large language model, probably some product produced by a company like Anthropic ”

“This is where I'm like a ruthless businessman, right? Like at the end of the day, Chat GPT, Google, Anthropic, they all ate the totality of publicly available information on the internet, including everything that Axios ever wrote, right? So then you have two options there. You could do what the New York Times is doing and you could sue OpenAI and hope that you win in court. I didn't think that we would necessarily w”

“I think probably the most out there view I might have on AI is I think there's a much higher chance than people realize that in the next six months one or both of the two parties will be so anti-AI as a party that they call for shutting it down altogether. I think Bernie Sanders view could be the dominant view of the entire Democratic party in a very short period of time. It would not surprise me by the way if Republ”

Other executives at Axios

The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →