Bloomberg Drops Huge Cash, Poaches Business Insider's Joe Weisenthal To Host New TV Show

Joe Weisenthal, executive editor of Business Insider, is leaving the company.

Weisenthal is going to Bloomberg, where he'll host a TV show and develop a news site about the markets.

He has been with Business Insider for six years.

When he joined in the fall of 2008, Business Insider did not exist yet.

We asked him why he's leaving.

"I love BI and I never thought of leaving," he said. "But Josh Tyrangiel at Bloomberg put together an offer that no journalist could pass up."

It has been widely reported that Mark Halperin and John Heilemann are being paid over $1 million a year to host a show on politics for Bloomberg.

Business Insider editor-in-chief just sent out this email to Business Insider staff:

Team,

I have some bittersweet news.

Joe Weisenthal will be leaving us this week to pursue an amazing opportunity at Bloomberg. Joe will be the host of a new financial TV show and the editor of a new markets and economics site that Bloomberg plans to launch next year.

Joe has contributed a huge amount to Business Insider in the past 6 years.

Joe joined us as a junior writer on our Finance section during the financial crisis. His talent, dedication, voice, news judgement, and unbridled enthusiasm for our medium quickly became apparent. As we grew, we eagerly gave Joe more and more responsibility, and for the last few years, he has helped lead the newsroom as Deputy Editor and Executive Editor. Over this period, our readership has quadrupled.

We are sad to say goodbye to Joe, but we will always encourage our colleagues to pursue great opportunities, here and elsewhere, and this is an amazing one. Happily, we also now have by far the strongest editorial team we have ever had.

Please join me in congratulating Joe. We wish him all the best.

(Sydney is arranging drinks tomorrow evening for a proper good-bye. Details to follow.)

Henry

Joe sent out this response:

Thanks Henry and thanks to all of you! The last 6 years have been a thrill and I'm going to miss it here tremendously.

Here is the earliest photo I could find of Joe from my iPhone.

It's from the summer of 2009, back when Business Insider was only a few months old.

Here's Joe, back when he was a mere deputy editor, sitting next to his first intern, Gus Lubin:

Lubin is also now an executive editor at Business Insider:

Here's one of Weisenthal in a hat:

Here he is doing one of his favorite things, looking at a menu full of Chinese food:

Here is a video from way back when, where he answers questions about himself and early Business Insider:

We are going to miss Joe a lot.

Something tells me he will also miss us!