Jessica Lessin, the Bay Area tech reporter who quit the Wall Street Journal to launch her own tech publication, has her first doozy of a hire — former WSJ colleague and ace Google beat reporter Amir Efrati.
"Amir is the killer combination of a scoop maven and a smart, analytical thinker," Lessin said on Tuesday in her announcement. Efrati will join her as-yet-unnamed news site as a senior reporter in mid-August.
Also read: Editor Erick Schonfeld Out at TechCrunch, Former VentureBeat Editor Eric Eldon In
Efrati is Lessin's second hire. Her first, Eric Newcomer, is just a year out of college and previously worked as an intern at the New York Times and a city hall reporter for the Washington Examiner.
Lessin's site has already broken at least one story since its June launch: Apple's plans to incorporate an ad-skipping service into its television service.
The logisitics of Lessin's site are still very much unknown. Gawker's Valleywag reported that the site would probably be funded by venture firms, much like PandoDaily. The name of the site and its launch date remain a mystery — she's currently using her personal WordPress site in the meantime.
It's certainly possible that her capital — or at least her connection to it — is coming from inside the house: Lessin is married to top Facebook executive Samuel Lessin.
For the record: An earlier version of this story said Efrati was Lessin's first hire and that he worked with Lessin on her Apple scoop. He is the second hire and did not assist Lessin on that story. TheWrap regrets the error.