When it looked like the Yahoo CEO search had come down to the obvious, easy choice, Yahoo goes ahead and picks long-time Googler Marissa Mayer, reports The New York Times's Andrew Ross Sorkin and Evelyn Rusli, who call it a "surprising coup." (Here is the Yahoo press release on the hire.) Mayer is a surprise not just because interim CEO Ross Levinsohn was thought as the leading contender for the job but also because as an one of Google's first 20 employees (she's currently vice president of location and local services), she leaves the comfort and security of Google for the wheezing giant mess at Yahoo. But, it makes a little bit of sense. It gives, Mayer, 37, the chance to run one of the biggest, most well known tech companies out there. "It was a reasonably easy decision," she told Sorkin and Rusli, calling Yahoo "one of the best brands on the Internet."

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