WSJ tech reporter is leaving

Jessica Lessin, a San Francisco-based senior technology reporter at the Wall Street Journal of several years, is quitting (somewhat abruptly) to launch her own tech website, reports Sam Biddle at Valleywag.

Biddle writes, “It’s unclear how she’ll be funding her new operation — I hear she’ll be taking venture funding — or exactly what the circumstances of her exit are. I was told by a staffer within News Corp. that the announcement of Lessin’s move brought one colleague to ‘tears,’ and that she might’ve been prompted by some internal conflict at the Journal vis-a-vis promotions.

“On the other hand, her marriage to Facebook product wiz Sam Lessin was problematic—you know, ethically.”

Read more here. Since joining the paper in 2005, Lessin has broken some of the technology and media industries’ biggest stories as The Journal’s beat reporter for Google Inc., Facebook Inc. and other leading companies. Currently, she covers Apple Inc. and writes and edits a weekly technology column called “The Valley.”