The question that I haven't seen answered in any of the articles relating to the partial acquisition of Skype from eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) by a team of private investors is, who will own the underlying IP that runs the Skype P2P communications network?

That question must somehow have been answered if savvy investors such as Silver Lake Partners and Netscape founder Marc Andreesen's investment fund, felt comfortable forking over $1.9 billion to eBay.

And as TechCrunch's Mike Arrington points out, eBay did okay on this deal, emerging with a paper gain and still some share of any potential upside.

If conventional wisdom mattered, super venture capitalist Vinod Khosla could not have picked a worse time to launch a massive venture capital fund focused on extremely risky green technology investments. Yet Khosla, a VC legend in Silicon Valley, not only pulled it off but ended up with money away, according to the New York Times.

In fact, many of Khosla's investors are gun-shy state pension funds, still smarting from nasty losses suffered in venture capital and private equity placements that went horribly wrong in the economic meltdown of the past two years.

Noted venture capitalist Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital speculated this week, on his blog "Above the Crowd," about the near-term future of his industry. In short, it is not very bright. Gurley outlines why he thinks the sector is headed for a catastrophic but much needed contraction on the order of 50%. This is particularly bad for the ranks of marginal VCs who have enjoyed drawing hefty salaries for managing funds that now appear worthless.

But the contraction will be very good for the future of the VC segment. Says Gurley, "We have seen over and over again how excess capital can lead to crowded emerging markets with as many as five to six VC-backed competitors. Reducing this to two to three players will result in less cutthroat behavior and much healthier returns for all companies and entrepreneurs in the market."