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Recode Daily: Politico’s co-founder is betting that people will pay a lot for smart news summaries

Jim VandeHei sees an opportunity for his newsletter startup, Axios.

Becca Farsace for Recode

Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei believes there’s an untapped market for news coverage that’s smart, short and shareable. Interviewed at Code Media, he said that will be the aim of his newsletter startup, Axios, which will be ad-supported initially but eventually sell subscriptions for as much as $10,000 a pop. — [Jason Del Rey / Recode]

Also onstage at Code Media: Janine Gibson, BuzzFeed UK’s editor in chief, talked about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s choice to start publishing leaked documents “without the civilizing force of news organizations around him.” Also, Turner CEO John Martin said CNN critic Donald Trump has been good for business, and his election changes nothing for the news network. — [Recode]

Trump’s tweeted intent to exit his business ventures “in total” met with doubts that he would adequately resolve his extensive conflict-of-interest issues (though the Office of Government Ethics was snarkily enthusiastic). — [Ben Brody, Stephanie Baker and Caleb Melby / Bloomberg]

Fitness-wearable leader Fitbit is set to buy struggling smartwatch maker Pebble and will phase out the Pebble brand. — [Reed Albergotti and Jessica E. Lessin / The Information]

Amazon is making three of its artificial intelligence tools available through its Amazon Web Services cloud unit, enabling developers to create apps that use voice interfaces, text-to-speech and computer vision. — [April Glaser / Recode]

Action-camera maker GoPro is dropping its entertainment division and cutting its workforce by 15 percent. Tony Bates is also stepping down as president. — [April Glaser / Recode]

Netflix is finally letting its users download some of its shows and movies, a feature already offered by some rivals, notably Amazon. One significant exception: No Disney-owned shows and movies. — [Peter Kafka / Recode]

On the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka, journalist and “Freakonomics” co-author Stephen Dubner says that Trump voters were primarily motivated by economic worries and that racism and xenophobia are symptoms of that anxiety. — [Eric Johnson / Recode]

Top Stories From Recode

Mossberg: Facebook can — and should — wipe out fake news

You’re a media company now, Facebook. Behave like one.

Sheryl Sandberg is donating more than $100 million in Facebook stock to charity

Sandberg is also naming her foundation to honor her late husband, Dave Goldberg.

A house-flipping startup raised $210 million

Opendoor has sold 3,750 homes so far. It wants (a lot) more.

Hey Amazon, we’re still getting used to voice-first devices — please don’t give Echo a screen

Adding an alternative would slow down adoption and weaken the core experience.

Trump’s pick for transportation secretary could be good for companies with self-driving ambitions

Here are some of her previous stances on issues that may affect the transportation industry.

This Is Cool

Watch Jetmen and jets fly in formation

Three jetpack-wearing daredevils cruise alongside the French Air Force’s precision flying team.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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