But according to Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington, the reality isn’t quite as glamorous as it looks—and plenty of CEOs, she says, are desperate to quit, despite seemingly having it all. “The financial trap is much easier to see, while the identity trap is less tangible but no less real,” Huffington added. Huffington could have stayed at the top of Huffington Post. Huffington spent a grueling 11 years building Huffington Post into one of the biggest names in digital media, growing its newsroom to more than 850 journalists and becoming the first digital-native outlet to win a Pulitzer Prize. “My mother used to say failure is not the opposite of success, it’s a stepping stone to success.”