After her successful career with The Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington is following a new path in the world of health and wellness and is creating a new project called Thrive Global.
Huffington has recently written books on health and sleep habits and her new website will focus on those topics and new lifestyles. Huffington announced her new ambition in June, hoping that she was going to be able to handle both sites. But now she realized she cannot run both projects and made a decision.
The Huffington Post was co-founded by Arianna Huffington 11 years ago along with Kenneth Lerer and Jonah Peretti. The website is well known for being immersed in politics and its peculiar way of management that included not paid bloggers.
And most recently the site had caught even more attention when it started to publish the news they cover about Trump with the entertainment tag instead of the politics tag. This action made it clear that the news portal is against the candidate as a person and not only for not agreeing with his political stands but because from the beginning of the electoral race, The Huffington Post predicted what was going to be Trump’s approach. Which proves how political the website became to be.
But Arianna has found a new passion and even wrote two books about health and sleep. In 2014 she published “Thrive” and this year she published “The Sleep Revolution” and has been lecturing on the topics around the country. And now she is determined to carry her new website Thrive Global.
In an interview, Huffington confessed that she realized that she could not build a new company part-time. Arianna said that she believed that she could carry with both projects, but she now understands that Thrive Global needs her full attention.
I thought HuffPost would be my last act. But I’ve decided to step down as HuffPost’s editor-in-chief to run my new venture, Thrive Global.
— Arianna Huffington (@ariannahuff) August 11, 2016
The news came as a surprise because the Greek entrepreneur had recently signed a new contract with the HuffPost to remain as president and editor in chief from June 2015 to 2019. But according to The Wall Street Journal, she said that her contract allows her to launch a new company.
Regarding the new website, Huffington has said that the platform goal is to promote well-being and productivity. She also mentioned that they seek to raise awareness about stress and how to transform our culture from surviving to thriving. Thrive Global is expected to be a full package with apps, events, seminars and workshops along with the website. And it will also work with companies to improve the wellbeing of its employees.
Arianna Huffington stated that this new path she is taking makes her feel that she can make a real contribution helping people to change their lifestyles and thus modify the culture that makes us live and work the wrong way.
Is it a coincidence that after Verizon had bought AOL, the former owner of The HuffPost, Arianna decided to leave the company.
There are skeptical opinions about Huffington’s sudden decision to leave the news portal and it is alleged that the 66-year-old editor is leaving The Huffington Post because Verizon bought the website indirectly.
The HuffPost was sold to AOL in 2011 for the significant amount of $315 million. Which is a lot of money if you considered that the Washington Post was sold two years ago for $215 million.
But to be fair, the Huffington Post is one of the major news organization and digital media company that had recently nearly 200 million monthly visitors around the world. It is established in 15 countries and has around 850 employees worldwide.
Despite its success, it was sold in 2011 and sold again last year but this time, the buyer did not purchase the HuffPost directly. Verizon bought AOL and thus, it also owns the website.
But according to The Huffington Post, the chief editor decision has nothing to do with the owners of the news portal. 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. It was a coincidence that it happened following the AOL buyout.
But The Huffington Post has experienced more editorials departures and to think about the takeover is almost inevitable.
HuffPost CEO Jared Grust assure the staff on Thursday that the company is stable although the AOL purchase remains undefined. He announced that it had been approved a hiring plan not only to fulfill Arianna Huffington position but also to search for new editors due to the recent departures., says The Huffington Post.
Huffington said that companies always succeed after their founders and stated that the website has a strong essence. Huffington said that the site it is about all its employees and not about her.
Building something from scratch doesn’t get easier just because you’ve done it before. There is only 1 way to do it: w/ your full attention.
— Arianna Huffington (@ariannahuff) August 11, 2016
Source: The Huffington Post