Arianna Huffington, the co-founder, and Editor-In-Chief of Huffington Post would be resigning so as to join health and wellness startup Thrive Global.
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Her new start-up Thrive Global is named after her book Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder, which focuses on helping people get the most out of their sleep patterns. “But I’ve made a decision to step down as HuffPost’s editor-in-chief to run my new venture, Thrive Global”, Arianna tweeted.
‘It is important to know when one door closes and another opens and I felt that moment had arrived’.
Many Huffington Post writers and contributors, however, are unpaid, and Huffington has argued that their visibility on a site with more than 100 million unique visitors a month is invaluable.
The Huffington Post will soon be without its editor-in-chief after Arianna Huffington announced she would be leaving the media giant to launch a new HR start-up instead.
The HuffPost media operation was sold to AOL in 2011 for $315 million United States, but Arianna Huffington continued to helm the Huffington Post part of the company as president and editor in chief.
So what’s next for Huffington when she leaves her post?
Thrive Global is described as a project created to combat workplace “burnout”.
“People were mocking blogs and mocking celebrities and she built a formidable media and political force”, said Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at CUNY in NY and well-known media commentator. The concept of a space where experts and celebrities can upload articles and opinion pieces has proved to be enormously popular on a global scale, with the site even going on to win the Pulitzer Prize.
Founded in 2005, Huffington Post has been backed and funded by Verizon Communication Inc. through AOL.
She echoed that message in a goodbye note to Huffington Post staffers.
In 2011, she and other shareholders of the Huffington Post sold it to AOL for about $315 million. “Today, the Huffington Post is a firmly established and celebrated news source and AOL and Verizon are committed to continuing its growth and the groundbreaking work Arianna pioneered”.
She said, in announcing her resignation, that guiding the new company through the startup and funding phases had simply taken more time than she expected. Her book, The Sleep Revolution, preaches the importance of getting enough shut-eye.
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Other investors include Blue Pool Capital, Greycroft Partners, Advancit Capital, and the Female Founders Fund.
