Even Arianna Huffington thought establishing a personal media empire would be enough work for her lifetime.
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While the Huffington Post has stayed political throughout the course of its 11 years, its expansion and increasing popularity has seen it branch out into numerous subjects.
But last week, she secured series A financing for Thrive Global and made a decision to step down from the Post. Originally she planned to remain with her namesake site until 2019, which Thrive as a side project, but has now decided to make the full switch this year. Huffington announced that startup in June.
Ms Huffington’s new venture, Thrive Global, will provide training, seminars and coaching about reducing stress and exhaustion.
She had earlier come in for criticism for leveraging her site to promote her book on the same subject. “Today, it’s clear that was an illusion”. “I think she’s been a strong force for journalism”.
The Huffington Post was acquired by AOL Inc.in 2011 for $315 million, and then AOL itself was bought by Verizon Communications for $4.4 billion previous year. The Huffington Post was founded as a liberal alternative to the Drudge Report and quickly rose in prominence as a blogging platform and news aggregator.
“I step down as editor-in-chief filled with gratitude for our wonderful HuffPost team and for what we’ve built together, and for [AOL CEO] Tim Armstrong who had the vision to buy HuffPost five years ago and to support from day one our global expansion”, said Huffington in a statement.
The Huffington Post was launched in 2005, and acquired by AOL in 2011 for $315m, and it has since established nine Huffington post global sites. The company, Thrive Global, will aim to “change the way we work and live by ending the collective delusion that burnout is a necessary price for success”, according to a press release.
The Huffington post is yet to make an announcement on who will succeed her as editor-in-chief.
She echoed that message in a goodbye note to Huffington Post staffers. The site had 75 million unique visitors on desktop and mobile in the U.S.in June, down 18 percent from a year ago, Comscore data show. Huffington said that she had been thinking about her future in the website for a while and was only waiting for a closing funding round for Thrive Global.
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Last week when she secured Series A funding for the new venture, Huffington said it became clear to her that she couldn’t do both.
