Tech journalists leaving field to enter business

Ki Mae Heussner of Adweek writes about how many tech reporters are leaving journalism to become business men and women.

Heussner writes, “Saul Hansell, a former New York Times tech reporter who left the paper in 2009 to help create AOL’s content farm, Seed, and then became Big News editor for HuffPo, blogged earlier this month about plans to join Betaworks as entrepreneur-in-residence.

“A few days later, Marshall Kirkpatrick, a lead writer for tech blog ReadWriteWeb, announced that he’ll be taking a leave from full-time writing to work on Plexus Engine, his data-mining startup.

“Other recent defectors include TechCrunch blogger MG Siegler, who joined his former boss Michael Arrington’s venture firm CrunchFund in October, and paidContent founder Rafat Ali, a former tech reporter who’s now working on what he calls a travel intelligence startup.

“‘The startup culture and the opportunity to do new things from scratch are so powerful,’ Hansell says. ‘It’s so easy to do things these days.’ Tools for building and promoting startups are more available than ever, especially for reporters and media insiders who can leverage their expertise and visibility on social media.”

Read more here.