David Cowan is a successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist whose credits include VeriSign, Ciena, HotJobs, Postini and LifeLock. His golden touch is such that in 2001 he made the Top 10 of Forbes magazine's "Midas List" of deal makers.

Yet to some people Cowan is the guy who whiffed on Google, eBay and PayPal.

While the lords of tech finance are loath to acknowledge mistakes, Cowan and his firm, Bessemer Venture Partners, don't just admit to billion-dollar blunders but describe them in an "anti-portfolio" on the firm's Web site.

Regarding eBay: "Stamps? Coins? Comic books? You've got to be kidding," thought Cowan. "No-brainer pass."

Silicon Valley and its venture capitalists built their reputation nurturing one next big thing after another. As the Mercury News presents its quarterly venture capital report in today's Sunday Business section, here's (more...)