On August 11, Arianna Huffington, founder, namesake, President and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post, announced her resignation from the publication that she shaped into a global phenomenon. Thrive Global is expected to launch formally in November 2016. “But I’ve made a decision to step down as HuffPost’s editor-in-chief to run my new venture, Thrive Global”, Arianna tweeted.
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As Huffington moves into another phase of her life, she said leading both companies would be contradictory to her new startup’s mission.
Founded in 2005, Huffington Post has been backed and funded by Verizon Communication Inc. through AOL. It encompasses and offers services which include but are not limited to news, original content, satire, blogs, interviews, politics, lifestyle, business, entertainment, fashion, environment, technology, popular media, culture, comedy, healthy living, women’s interests, as well as local news.
Thrive has received funding from Lerer Hippeau Ventures – led by a HuffPost co-founder Kenneth Lerer – and other groups and individuals including National Basketball Association star Andre Iguodala and entrepreneur and philanthropist Sean Parker. Peretti founded BuzzFeed and Lerer is its chairman, while Breitbart went on to create the rightwing news site that is named after him.
There’s no immediate word on who will replace Huffington at the HuffPost helm.
Now she’s off to focus full time on what she says is the good news about wellness. Representatives for New York-based Verizon and The Huffington Post did not respond to a request for comment Thursday morning.
In the midst of her success and race for global domination, Huffington received a wake-up call. “One of the Thrive principles is knowing when it’s time for a new chapter to begin”.
The site eventually morphed from a place where celebrities shared opinions on the day’s current events to a legitimate news organization that won its first Pulitzer Prize in 2012.
AOL’s takeover of the media company has had its rocky moments, in part because of tensions between AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong and Ms Huffington over issues such as allocation of resources, according to reports. In 2014 she published “Thrive” and this year she published “The Sleep Revolution” and has been lecturing on the topics around the country.
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Huffington said the company has closed a Series A funding round led by Lerer Hippeau ventures, but did not provide further details on how much money was raised.
