My mother made us feel like we could do anything. My sister and I lived with her in a one-bedroom apartment in Greece after my parents separated. When I saw a picture of Cambridge University in a magazine and said I wanted to go, she never said: “Well, you have no money and you don’t speak English.” Instead it was: “Let’s see how we can make that happen.”
The Huffington Post is still like a third child to me. Taking what was an idea and turning it into a global media company is something I treasure. It was incredibly disruptive in its time and it really put the focus on covering everything beyond just left and right.
My father always believed in speaking truth to power. He was a journalist and I took a lot of my passion for work from him. He was pretty fearless, too. He was arrested by the Germans and spent the war in a concentration camp.
There’s more snobbery in the UK than the US. When I started debating at the Cambridge Union, nobody ever thought I would get anywhere because my accent was so laughable. I used to get called up to speak at midnight when there were only three people left in the chamber [she was later elected president of the union].
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
Being in love is equal parts exhilaration and distress. Exhilaration at being around the person and distress at the possibility of losing them. I was first attracted to Michael Huffington [her husband from 1986 to 1997 and a former Republican congressman] because he was smart, caring and handsome. Looking back, it’s hard to say exactly when I knew the marriage was over. There isn’t usually one single point.
Trump has us in a constant state of outrage. We are much more effective in our actions of resistance, and our ability to show empathy for those who need it, when we tap into our resilience and avoid outrage.
The work culture in Silicon Valley needs to change. The machismo signals to women that they’re not welcome. I was surprised and shocked to hear the allegations of sexual harassment at Uber [Huffington is a board member]. I’m committed to making whatever changes are necessary.
I used to live under the delusion that I had to burn out to succeed. In 2007, when I was two years into the Huffington Post and had been working around the clock as well as being a mother to two teenage daughters, I collapsed from exhaustion. It was a wake-up call.
People who said we should have paid our bloggers don’t understand the nature of [online] platforms. Today there are thousands of publications where contributors write if they want to write. They have no deadlines. They want a distribution platform. It’s no different from people going on Newsnight and not being paid.
The world has many challenges, but it’s hard to feel resigned when you see the drive in my daughters’ generation. They’re more informed and passionate about their world than my generation ever was.
Date: March 18, 2017