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In the space of three decades, it has destroyed America’s monopoly of the big jet airliner market, forcing one US manufacturer out of business in the process and capturing almost half of world demand. But on another level the answer has to be an equally resounding no. Starting with a blank paper, no one of sane mind would construct an organisation as flawed as Airbus. Its $5m investment is now worth about $2.5bn, a 49,900 per cent return, figures that almost crashed the company’s computers..

IF AIRBUS Industrie did not exist, would anyone bother to invent it? On one level the answer must be an unequivocal yes, for this is an outstanding European success story by any standards. Its biggest coup was buying a 22 per cent stake in the online auctioneers eBay Inc. Recent investments include Nextcard, which sells credit cards over the Internet, and stamps , which aims to make physical trips to the post office a memory.BenchmarkCapitalIn business since 1995, the company has invested nearly $250m. It does not disclose financial details of its funding.BrentwoodVenture CapitalHas raised more than $1bn, including a $300m fund which closed last November.

Kleiner Perkins also owns the intermediate venture fund Integral Capital Partners. Biggest triumph: UUNET Technologies, one of the world’s biggest ISPs. Accel’s $3.9m investment in October 1993 now worth more than $500m.SequoiaCapitalInvested in Apple, Oracle, Cisco and Yahoo! Size of investment fund unknown, but market capitalisation of the 50 companies it has launched since 1980 is now totalling about $400bn, which is based on an initial investment of “a few tens of millions”.Kleiner Perkins Caufield & ByersCompany best known for setting up the so-called Java Fund in 1996 to launch commercial ideas stemming from the computer language developed by Sun Microsystems. The partners refused offers of $400m in investment capital, which indicates its success in preparing firms for initial public offerings.

I have trouble imagining a stockbroker sitting behind a desk for much longer. People are going to read about insurance agents and think they were some piece of Java code. Bricks and mortar retail outlets will be restricted to luxury goods and some perishables because they will be an untenably expensive distribution system.”Such faith explains why it doesn’t make much sense, from the venture capitalist’s view, to worry about a bubble effect of excessive Internet investment.”Billions are flowing into publicly floated companies, many with little prospect of a profit in the near-term, or at all, but with an economic revolution of boundless proportions exploding all around, who’s going to quibble about a few miscalculated equity speculations?”THE INTERNET FORTUNE HUNTERS OF SILICON VALLEYAccelPartnersRecently set up a $310m fund for Internet companies, and a $275m general fund. This is the future, and they know it.”For Mr Schoendorf, the Internet is almost a religion “This is a tectonic plate shift. Up to half the companies on the Fortune 500 list are going to be replaced,” he said. “It’s going to affect everything in our lives, from the way doctors and hospitals are chosen for our gestation and birth to the choice of casket for our funerals.”Some professions will disappear and others take their place. Again, this is not a problem the venture capitalists lose too much sleep over.”We have kids coming here from college and asking for summer jobs in the ‘cool’ companies,” said Joe Schoendorf.