As we reported earlier, Eric Hippeau is switching roles at the Huffington Post from board member to CEO. He’ll still be on the board but as the person responsible for day-to-day operations, not the adviser, for the first time since he left as chairman and CEO of Ziff-Davis in 2000. Hippeau isn’t completely leaving the VC world: he stays on at SoftBank as special partner, representing the company on three portfolio boards. (Separately, we understand that SoftBank is on the verge of deciding whether or not to raise a new U.S. fund.)

Why Hippeau? HuffPo Cofounder Ken Lerer told me he first met Hippeau four years ago and, within 15 minutes of explaining the concept, had a handshake deal for Softbank to invest. No, Hippeau doesn’t have general news experience but “he gets journalism completely,” Lerer said. “As we were going through our thinking as a board, it became apparent that we had the best possible new CEO right here.” Why change now? Referring to the economy, Lerer explained: “Sometimes things happen where you can really build a company aggressively. ... This is the time the Huffington Post needs to get to the next level. It’s the time when we have to double down.”

Hippeau and I spoke Monday afternoon about HuffPo’s plans, as well as his decision to move back to the operations side of a media company and to lead a startup, instead of advising it.

—Investment, not profit: Referring, I think, to my mention in the earlier story about HuffPo achieving reach but still looking for profit, Hippeau stressed: “The business is not profitable right now because we’re in investment mode.” He added later: “You could make it profitable today.”  HuffPo has raised a little more than $37 million—and the majority of that is still in the bank. Hippeau and others say HuffPo advertising has been growing a 100 percent a year, although he admits that being a startup means that growth is based on smaller numbers. How much is HuffPo taking in a year? “We don’t divulge that number.”

—Not quite leaving SoftBank: Hippeau said the current VC market is challenging but that did not affect his decision. “Softbank Capital has new money committed from anchor investors and is focusing on its current portfolio. I jumped at the opportunity to run the Huffington Post because of the huge potential.” He’ll stay on the boards of Thumbplay, Buddy Media and BuzzFeed.

—Politics and beyond: “There’s a lot of different ways that we can expand. I need a little time to make sure we have our priorities right.” Vertical expansion will continue, as will local with New York slated for next week. HuffPo’s initial expansion beyond politics helps even out any slack that comes from political downtime. Hippeau explained: “We had a very deliberate strategy to expand beyond politics. Today, well over half of our traffic comes outside of politics. That has picked up the slack if there was any to pick up. We’re already seeing political traffic rise to the levels at the height of the campaign. People are getting much more involved and they want to retain their involvement. I think people understand that there are major changes going on in society.”

—‘Very entrepreneurial’: Hippeau started his career as a journalist, than as an entrepreneur founding what he calls Brazil’s first computer magazine. Ziff-Davis was a full-blown company but he calls it “very entrepreneurial.” (He’s still proud of ZDTV being the first outside of local stations to build a full TV studio in San Francisco.)  While he hasn’t headed a tech or media startup this decade, Hippeau has been involved in numerous startups as a hands-on board member. That’s a large part of the appeal at HuffPo: Lerer said the two spoke three times a week; Arianna Huffington told me he wasn’t a passive investor as some VCs are.
—Presence on other boards: Hippeau thinks keeping his membership on other boards “is helpful to the Hufffington Post in terms of being able to cross-pollinate. The web is a series of partnerships.” He wasn’t directly involved in HuffPo’s short-lived partnership with Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) News but said he expects to see more partnerships. “I think you’re going to see us do a lot of experimenting.”

• Arianna Huffington: ‘Staying Still Doesn’t Work’
• Updated: HuffPo Changes CEOs: Betsy Morgan Being Replaced By SoftBank’s Eric Hippeau