Arianna Huffington departs Huffington Post for wellness startup

Photographed on the roof of the Huffington Post’s Grenwich Village Office NYC

SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — Arianna Huffington, co-founder and Editor-In-Chief at the Huffington Post, announced Thursday that she will be stepping down from her post to focus on a new wellness startup called Thrive Global.

She announced the news via her official Twitter account Thursday morning:

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

Thrive Global shares the same name as Huffington’s first self-help book, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder. It’s main focus will be on helping people prioritize and get the most out of their sleeping patterns. Huffington’s own newest startup, which just received an undisclosed amount of Series A funding, focuses on similar principles — according to a press release, Thrive will use seminars, coaching and other methods of support to provide its users with micro-steps toward wellness, meant to decrease stress and exhaustion.

“Thrive Global’s mission is to change the way we work and live by ending the collective delusion that burnout is a necessary price for success,” the release said.

The Series A round was led by Lerer Hippeau Ventures, the same firm founded by Huffington Post’s other co-founder, Ken Lerer and former HuffPost chief executive Eric Hippeau. Blue Pool Capital, Greycroft Partners, Advancit Capital, Female Founders Fund, Zoë Baird, Nicolas Berggruen, Joanna Coles, Ray Dalio, Mohamed El-Erian, Nick Green, Gunnar Lovelace, Fred Harman, Isabella Huffington, Andre Iguodala, and Sean Parker also participated in the round.

Thrive Global has planned to launch in November, immediately following the month’s national general election.

Here’s what Tim Armstrong, AOL CEO, had to say about the transition in a memo to employees:

AOLers –

Our core DNA of unleashing the world’s best builders of culture and code is happening again today. After an unprecedented partnership over the last five years that took The Huffington Post from a U.S. blog site to a global media powerhouse, Arianna is following her passion to devote herself full-time to her new venture, Thrive Global. The Huffington Post will continue its push to become the #1 global leader in news and information and the leadership of The Huffington Post is prepared to take the mission to the next level.

Arianna is an undisputed new media pioneer, and The Huffington Post is nothing short of an iconic brand. We want to thank Arianna for her entrepreneurial spirit, vision and leadership in helping to build The Huffington Post into the successful and thriving news platform it is today. We know she will bring the same passion to Thrive Global and we believe that Thrive Global will help transform the wellness industry.

The Huffington Post has been working on a next generation strategy over the last few months and the CEO of The Huffington Post, Jared Grusd, will lead the implementation and communication of that plan, which focuses on scaling news and video on an even more global basis. We have formed an interim editorial committee (Ryan Grim, Liz Heron, Katie Nelson, Kate Palmer, and Whitney Snyder) that will be stepping in to fill Arianna’s role and they will be involved in an ongoing search for a new Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post. We know that our exceptional team will continue to deliver the powerful reporting, writing and analysis that draw more than 178M people worldwide to visit The Huffington Post on a daily basis.

The Huffington Post is a critical pillar of our strategy and is only becoming more important with our recent moves into AR/VR with RYOT. As the connected world expands and the global need for news and information expands, The Huffington Post is well positioned to be a leader for decades to come.

We will have a proper celebration for Arianna before she leaves to change the world again – and we will continue the mission and innovation of The Huffington Post with our incredible team. Let’s make news – TA