Arianna Huffington Leaving Publication To Pursue Health Startup

Huffington Post co-founder, Arianna Huffington, expressed her intention to leave the company in the next few weeks to focus on a new venture, Thrive Global. Incidentally, she got funding for her new venture only late last week, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Huffington Post became a Verizon Communications Inc (NYSE: VZ) company after Verizon acquired AOL last year.

Eleven years ago, Huffington co-founded the publication along with Kenneth Lerer, Andrew Breitbart and Jonah Peretti. The company, which was launched as an alternative to Drudge Report, was sold to AOL for $315 million in 2011.

Related Link: Uber Once Made Arianna Huffington Feel Like A Greek Goddess, Now She's Joining The Board

Huffington was able to start her new venture, Thrive Global, without any need to leave the publication. However, she felt the new venture needed her full attention though she wanted to do both.

Aside from running the Huffington Post, Arianna also wrote several books that focused on health and sleep issues like "The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time." She also occupied a position in other companies like Uber.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong commented that Arianna is a visionary and that both AOL and Verizon would continue the groundbreaking work that she pioneered. The company is yet to make a profit, though it has been consistent in generating at least 100 million unique visitors every month.

Here is a timeline of Arianna's tenure:

• 2005 – Launched The Huffington Post as a co-founder with Kenneth Lerner
• 2005 – Became Editor-in-Chief
• 2007 – Huffington continued her habit of writing books and released "On Becoming Fearless…. In Love, Work, and Life"
• 2008 – The Observer named The Huffington Post for being a powerful blog
• 2010 - Released "Third World America"
• 2011 – Sold the site to AOL for $315 million
• 2012 – Huffington Post writer, David Wood, won Pulitzer Price for national reporting
• 2012 – Expanded to Canada, Great Britain, France and Spain, among a number of nations
• 2014 - Huffington moved to number 52 in Forbes' "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women,"
• 2014 – Huffington's book "Thrive" debuted at No. 1 on New York Times best seller list
• 2016 – Huffington's book "The Sleep Revolution" became best seller in New York Times

Image: Rappaport Center, Flickr