Axios CEO Jim VandeHei and co-founder Mike Allen write this column on their 20 years as entrepreneurs together:
Twenty years ago this year, Jim quit The Washington Post and Mike bolted TIME magazine to fix a problem that seems baffling today:
- Consumers needed more political news, delivered with more speed and more voice. Politico — which launched Jan. 23, 2007 — was the solution.
Why it matters: Little did we know. We soon helped end the daily news cycle, seed and feed a consumer addiction to political news, topple legacy news models, and fragment media consumption in then-unimaginable ways.
We alone didn't start this fire. But, along with co-founders John Harris, Robert Allbritton, Fred Ryan and Kim Kingsley, we surely lit or fanned it — then had front-row seats to witness the blaze.
- We're proud of helping create Politico, and prouder still of what we're building here at Axios. These are big, durable companies committed to strong journalistic principles.
- As we enter our 20th year as media entrepreneurs, we wanted to take stock of the good, bad and ugly that's unfolded before our eyes ever since a few people created a small D.C. publication two decades ago. Politico took off like a rocket in a way none of us expected.
The big picture: The media and political landscape of today looks nothing like it did in 2007. The transformation we helped pilot — from broad to niche, from slow to instant, from institutional to individual — upended media, politics and information consumption:
- The death of the "day": In 2007, a big story or "scoop" lasted 24 hours or more. Editors hoarded big stories for the Sunday paper. Politicians and readers spent days reacting to powerful new revelations. We ended this decisively — and by design. We calculated that most people did most of their reading in the early hours — but most reporters didn't start their workdays until 10 a.m. So, we obsessed about "winning the morning" — "The Scoop Factory," The New Republic dubbed us back in 2009 — by creating Politico Playbook, then churning out sunrise scoops while others snoozed. Our mentality was to beat the competition before they even got in the game. Within years, everyone was doing this. Now, you're lucky to hold someone's attention for an hour or two. This is a big reason we started Axios nine years ago.
- The newsletter is the new front page: Before Mike launched Politico Playbook in June 2007, newsletters were mostly dusty recaps sent by marketing departments. We turned Playbook into Washington's town square — a mix of high-stakes news, birthdays, and gossip that the entire power structure read before breakfast. Playbook proved that personal voice now matters more than institutional voice. And that in the internet era, the most powerful people want their news faster and more efficiently. Today, there are tens of thousands of newsletters on Substack alone. The most influential voices and readers are addicted to the format: Axios AM now reaches about the same number of leaders in politics, media, tech and business as there were daily subscribers to the fabled Washington Post when we left 20 years ago.
- Individuals trump institutions. The arrogance of the Post and other legacy institutions at our initial launch was breathtaking. They believed (and, at the time, it seemed right) that it was the media brand, not the star journalists, that mattered. They assumed their historic brands were impenetrable. But we bet that the most talented journalists were bigger than the brands — so we paid and treated them that way. Soon, Maggie Haberman, Ben Smith and many others were household names. But everyone knew they worked for us. So both sides profited. This is the dominant model of today, where star journalists leave the dinosaurs to bet on themselves — and make more money.
- Niche, not national. Politico didn't invent niche coverage, but it pioneered one of the most lucrative news spaces ever — and inspired a massive acceleration of media brands catering to very specific, often micro, audiences. Politico profited from the intense readership of political professionals, not the large national online audience. Look around at the most successful brands since — Axios, The Information, Punchbowl and more — and you see the same model.
- Journalists as entrepreneurs. This might be the legacy we're most proud of. Journalists 20 years ago saw themselves as salaried cogs of big brands, unless you were a TV star. But we helped encourage an entire generation of journalists to see themselves differently, as entrepreneurs. Jessica Lessin left The Wall Street Journal to start The Information; Ben Smith left Politico to help start BuzzFeed News and later Semafor; Jon Kelly left Vanity Fair, after stints at The New York Times and Bloomberg, to start Puck; Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Anna Palmer left Politico to start Punchbowl. We've proudly helped advise all of them at different points.
- The gutting of legacy media. We were laughed at for even suggesting that Politico would one day be bigger and more important than the Post. It was an audacious thought two decades ago. We didn't cause the Post's decline, but Politico rose as legacy media fell. Social media and slow, tired newsroom cultures were bigger culprits. Axios shows it's easier to build a new brand from scratch than rescue fading ones. Twenty years later, we think there's more good content from a more diverse set of voices than ever. But there's an underbelly ...
- Rise of political porn. Once upon a time, political coverage was mostly boring, and rarely an hourly obsession. Politico amplified not just the policies, but the personalities and in-the-weeds politics animating elections and government. We helped create a monster: politics as entertainment — and the dominant weapon in a never-ending cultural war. This wasn't the intent. But we can't deny the outcome.
- The fragmentation of truth. This is another darker legacy of the era. By speeding up the news and proving that "niche" pays, the entire industry fractured. Consumers drifted into their own bubbles and realities. Politicians exploited this fracturing, and news morphed into information warfare. The public lost trust in legacy media and a shared common purpose. Reality shattered. Politico isn't to blame, but its rise coincided with the fall of media as we knew it.
What's next: We're hurtling into a post-news era, and we're trying to steer Axios readers through it. And as we tell any young person who'll listen:
- If you ever have the chance to start something from scratch, do it! You'll learn more about humanity and yourself than you would in a lifetime of classes.
A few people often get credit for creating a brand or company. In truth, hundreds leave little parts of themselves in new creations. So thank you to all Axions and Politicos past and present, especially Roy Schwartz, Kayla Cook Brown and Danielle Jones.
- Go deeper: How Axios is navigating a post-news era.
