“I step down as editor-in-chief filled with gratitude for our incredible HuffPost team and for what we’ve built together”, she said in the statement.
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Huffington wants to devote her energies to Thrive Global, a startup that promises to “change the way we work and live by ending the collective delusion that burnout is a necessary price for success”, she said in a Twitter post.
Over the past few weeks, Huffington has spoken with investors to get financing for her new New York-based company, which will concentrate on providing information and online training to help people reduce stress and increase well-being.
Huffington launched her namesake site in 2005, following the re-election of George W. Bush and as the war raged in Iraq.
Huffington signed a new four-year contract in June 2015 to stay on as chairwoman, president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post. In late July, Verizon announced the $4.8 billion acquisition Yahoo, which has its own hefty media business.
Armstrong said in a press release on Thursday that “AOL and Verizon are committed to continuing” the growth of The Huffington Post and “the groundbreaking work Arianna pioneered”. She also said she felt it was time to understand when one door closes, another opens.
The 66-year-old Huffington was married to Republican congressman Michael Huffington and was known for her conservative views early in her career before veering toward Democratic Party causes. It moved coverage back to politics in December, announcing the change in a post penned by Huffington and titled “A Note on Trump: We Are No Longer Entertained”.
Arianna Huffington alongside three others founded the site eleven years ago. I think shes been a strong force for journalism..
Huffington said she couldn’t run The Huffington Post and Thrive Global at the same time. Arianna said that she believed that she could carry with both projects, but she now understands that Thrive Global needs her full attention.
Thrive has received funding from Lerer Hippeau Ventures-led by HuffPost co-founder Kenneth Lerer-and other groups and individuals including National Basketball Association star Andre Iguodala and entrepreneur and philanthropist Sean Parker.
“To truly thrive means knowing when the time has come to close one chapter and start the next, and for me that time has arrived”.
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“This has been a very hard decision, but in many ways an inevitable one, given my commitment to building Thrive into a company that has a global impact on how we work and live”, she wrote.
