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VandeHei in the Arena

Weeks after Axios’s $525 million sale, Washington’s most influential media C.E.O. recalls some lessons from the Politico era and Axios’s ascent. And then offers some advice for the next generation of D.C. disruptors, like Punchbowl and Semafor.

Jim VandeHei, the co-founder and CEO of Axios and co-founder of Politico.
Jim VandeHei, the co-founder and CEO of Axios and co-founder of Politico. Photo by Wolfgang Kumm
Dylan Byers
September 14, 2022

Jim VandeHei, the co-founder of both Politico and Axios, has always had an admirably heightened sense of self. Asked once how he climbed from being a local reporter in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to the media entrepreneur and C.E.O. he is today, he said: “Every new job or new step I took, I thought, ‘Oh, these people aren’t that much smarter than I am. And then the next step I’d be like, ‘Oh, these people aren’t much smarter than I am.’”