How Arianna Huffington has breathed new life into the media Mrs Huffington tells how she and AOL chairman and chief executive Tim Armstrong made a split-second decision to launch the UK site. However, the company may have underestimated the loyalty some British users already have to the US version, and vastly overestimated the power of the AOL brand to get users interested. It is telling that, since then, the Huffington Post has launched by partnering with established newspapers, such as Le Monde in France and El Pais in Spain, although this presents its own challenges. The first edition of the French Huffington Post led with a "typical Huffington splash" composed of links to other papers, blogs and video. One of these was to Le Figaro, one of Le Monde's rivals. I literally had to call the chief executive of Le Monde to assure him he would not be fired. It goes against so much of people's DNA," Mrs Huffington says. I think the whole world is moving in that direction, becoming more collaborative. Next year's launch in Greece, where Mrs Huffington was born Arianna Stassinopoulos, will be even tougher. "I have to make the business case for an emotional undertaking," she admits. Mrs Huffington is angered by Europe's interference in the debt crisis facing her country, and for the heavy impact it is having on the youth who "are being punished for the sins of the fathers." She adds: "That, for me, is what is the most tragic aspect of what is happening in Greece and I don't think Angela Merkel should be the one dictating how Greece is going to turn things around." Some of her comments echo those of Christine Lagarde, the IMF chief, who sparked anger by telling Greece their children were having to pay the price for years of having fun and shirking taxes. But Mrs Huffington does not acknowledge any common ground. Instead, she rails against the austerity measures imposed on Greece. "If you didn't care at all about people and you just cared about the deficit, this is just a stupid way to go about it," she says. It doesn't work. Austerity does not lead to deficit reduction. That we are continuing not to look at the facts, to me is stunning. It is the definition of insanity. Back in the world of business, she is on a mission to stop another kind of insanity that has become more acute during the economic crisis: people pushing themselves so hard that they end up compromising their performance. "Men have identified sleep deprivation and driving yourself into the ground with virility and being tough, and I think we have all paid a heavy price for that," she says. It should not be normal to have a heart attack in your 50s. It is very, very hard to be truly creative when you are constantly running your life from your inbox. Mrs Huffington learnt the hard way. She fell asleep at her desk four years ago and ended up cracking her cheekbone. Now she has regular naps. Her senior team is also mostly composed of women. "Maybe, in the way men gravitate towards hiring men, I gravitate towards hiring women," she says. The Huffington Post has installed sleeping rooms in its offices and will this month launch its "GPS for the soul" app in the UK, which measures stress indicators such as a user's heart rate, and links directly to photographs, music or breathing exercises that can help them back to "a place of balance." It might all sound a bit Zen, but for Mrs Huffington the proliferation of social networks and mobile connectivity is going to drive strong commercial demand for these sorts of innovations. She cites the "do not disturb" feature for Apple's iPhone. And with that, Mrs Huffington sweeps out again, with one mobile in her hand and another pressed to her ear. Arianna Huffington CV Born July 15, 1950, in Greece. Grew up in a one-bedroom apartment with her mother and sister. Her father "kept starting newspapers that were going bankrupt." Educated Read Economics at Girton College, Cambridge, and was president of the Cambridge Union. Moved to New York in the 1980s. Family Two daughters with her ex-husband Michael Huffington, a former Republican congressman. Career After a number of years spent as a journalist for the National Review and writing biographies of figures including Pablo Picasso and Maria Callas, Mrs Huffington rose to prominence as a conservative campaigner during her then-husband Michael Huffington's Senate bid in 1994. However, her allegiances switched and she has since become known for her liberal views. She now heads environmental lobby group The Detroit Project. She hosted and contributed to various radio and television shows in the US. She launched the Huffington Post in 2005, and sold it to AOL for $315m in 2011. She continues to write regular blogs and interviews for the site.