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Axios Co-founder Roy Schwartz: why average is worthless now

October 6, 2026 · 44 min

Show notes

Roy Schwartz co-founded Axios, the news company known for smart brevity, and helped grow it to a $525 million sale to Cox Enterprises. He's now co-founder and CEO of Axios HQ, an AI-powered internal communications platform spun out of Axios. He co-wrote Smart Brevity, and his new book is Simplify. Before Axios, he was chief revenue officer of Politico.

In this episode of Summation, Roy and Auren discuss:

  • Meeting bankruptcy: wiping every recurring meeting off the calendar twice a year
  • AI as a complexity machine and the slop it's adding to every email and deck
  • The end of well-rounded, and why AI eats anyone who is average
  • Building Axios for influencers instead of casual readers, plus 200 events a year

You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Roy Schwartz on LinkedIn


All episodes of Summation with Auren Hoffman

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