While many have dreams of making it big in the internet world, we are inspired by those who actually do. This reinforces the belief that it actually works and it can happen to us, too. Take the case of Arianna Huffington. In 2005 she started the Huffington Post which is all in the internet unlike other news organizations that started out in print media and then entered the digital world of the internet.
She succeeded and let’s face it; one good gauge of success is in terms of dollar value. In 2011 or just six years after starting her website, AOL bought her company for a cool $315 million most of it in cash. Not only that, her influence actually expanded since aside from remaining the head had chief editor of the Huffington Post, other AOL media entities are now under the Huffington Post, giving her a combined audience of 240 million around the world. Forbes magazine ranks her as the 31st most women in the world for 2011.
This was not an overnight success story. Arianna was born on 1950, in Greece and took up her college degree in Cambridge, England. She had hosting stints with the BBC, was an article writer, authored 13 books, and even tried her hand running for California governor in 2003.
She was Arianna Stasinopoúlou until she married Michael Huffington in 1986. She helped campaign for her husband who won as a Republican congressman for California in 1992. He lost his bid to become a U.S. senator in 1994. The couple divorced in 1997 and have two daughters.
As you can see, before launching her Huffington Post website she already had some degree of media and political credentials. Her views were right-wing for a good part of her adult life but the Huffington Post is known as a left-leaning media outfit.
Her life is not a fairytale. She has faced plagiarism charges, and recently faced a lawsuit claiming that the unpaid contributors to her website should have a share in the multi-million dollar sale. Nevertheless, what she had done is proven that there is truly a new world out there in the internet, where you can give out news and information, and profit from it as well.
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