We knew that there would be more than a few nuggets of goodness in the 8,000 word New York Times fluff piece on VC firm Kleiner Caufield Perkins & Beyers and their new focus on green technology that ran on Sunday. While partner Komisar's comments about green investments not being particularly risky (we love this guy) were interesting, so too are KCPB's list of four reasons why they say start-ups fail. Curious as to what some of the most storied VCs in the biz say causes most start-ups to go under? Here's our edited version of their list:

-Technology Risk: Can the technology/product/good/widget actually be built? And if it can be built, can other people easily build? In other words, while KCPB might like your idea for a machine that turns compost into delicious—and organic!—cherry pies, it has to be feasible. Plus, they want to make sure that someone else can't copy it easily or that it's patentable. Er, duh.

-People Risk: How good is the actual team pitching the idea? Can the team members actually execute the plan (translation: do they have experience beyond flipping burgers, and preferably in the industry?)?

-Market Risk: Will anyone buy this product or technology? This is the risk factor, they say, that is the hardest to determine before a company's product or service actually hits the market. No kidding?!

-Financial Risk: If, after a VC initially invests in a company, he realizes that there is a problem with the technology, the team, or the market, it becomes obviously fairly quickly that there will be financial problems. The reason is two-fold. One is, of course, that if the product or good doesn't sell, the start-up won't make money. The second is if the start-up can't get additional funding because of the aforementioned problems. It's critical that a start-up has access to future capital because typically the amount of cash a VC firm invests at the outset is only a fraction of what the company needs to start making serious cash. If they can't get it, KCPB says there's a good chance they'll fold.

While we're the first ones to hype the brilliance of KCPB (nevermind that they invested in Segway, as we noted earlier)—is this the best they've got? Maybe it's just that the reason most start-ups fail is simple, and that it actually falls into one of those four categories or some combination thereof. We're guessing that some entrepreneurs might disagree with that. But if that is the case, and it's just that simple, doesn't that undermine the whole VC mystique, whereby only they know which businesses will succeed and which will fail because they're VCs?

What do you think?