Jim VandeHei, the founder of Axios, recently shared a note with his children about navigating artificial intelligence and rapid technological change. The message resonated far beyond his family. When he discussed it during an NPR segment, the response made clear that parents across the country are struggling with the same question: what do you even tell your kids when everything is changing this fast?
The anxiety is real. Artificial intelligence is displacing work. Social media is fragmenting attention. The job market feels precarious. For young people entering the workforce or still in school, the uncertainty can feel paralyzing. VandeHei doesn't minimize that. "It's normal to be anxious," he writes. "I see what you see: AI eating up work, phones eating up attention, politics eating up hope. That's a lot. It's real."
But his core argument cuts against despair: position yourself as early, not late.
Nobody actually knows how to master AI yet, VandeHei contends. Not professors. Not bosses. Not industry leaders. That wide-open field means there's no inherent disadvantage to starting now. The people who will thrive won't necessarily be the smartest or fastest to adapt. They'll be the ones who deploy AI strategically within their specific field. The path is still open.
His practical advice is blunt: spend 30 days using AI to improve tasks you dislike, rather than asking it to do the work for you. Do that consistently, and you'll land in the top 5 percent of your generation. Your major won't determine your destiny. Neither will your first job. What compounds over time are the skills that can't be learned in a classroom: clear writing, sharp thinking, the ability to pitch ideas, navigating difficult conversations, and learning quickly when what you learned yesterday becomes obsolete.
The hustle matters. Apply to more jobs than your peers. When you land one, outwork them. Show up earlier. Use the tools better. Become the most competent and admirable person in the office. VandeHei's formula is old-school, but he wraps it in modern context: the structural advantages are narrowing, which means personal execution matters more.
Another recurring theme: your phone is engineering your despair. The algorithms feeding you content are designed to convince you the world is worse than it actually is. Crime is down. Substance abuse among young people is down. More Americans are literate, housed, and fed than at any point in history. Cancer survival rates are climbing. "You're living in the safest, richest, healthiest version of America," VandeHei writes, "and being told every 30 seconds it's ending."
His antidote involves replacing doomscrolling with intentional curation. Use social media to find smart people sharing practical advice for what you want to do better. Retrain the feed, not abandon it.
The most powerful section may be the simplest: "You control you." That's it. You don't control the economy, the algorithms, the job market, or the political landscape. You control when you wake up, what you eat, whether you move your body, what you consume, and how you treat the person in front of you. Every small decision makes you a little better or a little worse. VandeHei calls it "quite liberating, even empowering."
He also emphasizes engagement over isolation. The happiest and most successful people he's observed share a pattern: they showed up. They volunteered. They applied even when unqualified. They committed to action before feeling ready. Involvement in people and causes creates natural momentum and leaves no mental space for catastrophizing about forces beyond your control.
The letter acknowledges that the world is genuinely changing faster than ever before and that he doesn't have all the answers. But his closing is uncomplicated: "You're not alone. You're not crazy. You've got this."
Author James Rodriguez: "The message works because it's honest about the stakes while refusing the false choice between either ignoring change or surrendering to it. That's the conversation young people actually need to hear."
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