When entrepreneur Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz burst onto the venture scene two short years ago, they planned to be a different kind of venture firm, one that would have a very small number of GPs, and pour the “majority” of its capital into seed-stage companies along with “two to three late-stage deals, or something like that,” Andreessen told me at the time.

Even the best laid plans change. Andresseen Horowitz suddenly has four five GPs, a venture partner, and a very special, special advisor: former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Meanwhile, it has sunk enormous chunks of its capital into Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, Kno, Aliph, Skype, RockMelt, Zynga, Fusion-io.

It’s no big deal, except that Andreessen Horowitz is beginning to less like a pioneer and more like Kleiner Perkins with its own numerous GPs, part-time partners, and love of late-stage deals.

Certainly, there are worse firms to emulate. And Andreessen no doubt learned much at the knee of John Doerr, who long sat on the board of Netscape. (In 1994, KP scored 25 percent of the company for $4 million, profiting handsomely when it went public the following year.)

Still, the growing similarities are striking, even a little comical — or so we think in our current, overtired state. (No one has ever accused us of having the world’s greatest sense of humor.) Herewith, a slideshow to make our case:

When we heard Larry Summers was jumping into the VC game, we just assumed Kleiner Perkins was adding another celebrity to its roster. But it turned out that newbie venture firm Andreessen Horowitz brought on the former U.S. Treasury Secretary as a “part-time special advisor.”

We’re still trying to figure out what a part-time special advisor does, but the more pressing question we have is whether big shots like Summers do anything for a venture firm other than get it mentioned in the press.

Before we start calling these firms to ask our annoying questions, we’d like to know what you, dear reader, have to say.

For example, do you think that U2 lead singer Bono has added value to Elevation Partners, the technology-focused PE firm he co-founded in 2005? It’s not clear to us what Elevation has gotten out of the relationship – besides the fact that Elevation co-founder Roger McNamee’s band, Moonalice, got to open for U2 in Oakland, Calif., earlier this month.

We’re also curious about how Kleiner Perkins has benefitted from its alliances with

Recruiter Jon Holman has seen a lot in his 30-year career, working with venture capital firms like Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital and their portfolio companies.

In the ‘80s, when he placed the occasional GP, it was a matter of plucking someone from an investment bank or operating position. In the go-go ‘90s, the business of GP searches became brisker, though “you weren’t going to pry a GP from an existing fund; that just didn’t happen,” according to Holman.

Then came the Great Implosion of 2000. A wave of VCs looking to jump ship because of internal dynamics or poor performance was eventually followed by those grown desperate to land something else before their funds dried up. Indeed, according to Holman’s estimates, roughly 100 VCs were “loose in the saddle” by 2007. By 2009, Holman was fielding calls around the clock, many from GPs who had either left their firms or would have to soon.

The industry still isn’t done spitting out VCs, says Holman.

Call me out of touch, but I hadn’t realized Greg Papadopoulos joined New Enterprise Associates as an entrepreneur in residence last year. His new role as a venture partner and advisor to portfolio companies (announced Monday) seems a better match for his skills. Papadopoulos (pictured) has accumulated a broad range of experience in his 16 [...]

In this week’s Social Scene, buyout bigshot Steve Schwarzman shows yet again that he has way more money than you and me combined, VC Naval Ravikant gets the old “I left the code at home” excuse, a rich British entrepreneur goes gun crazy, and Skype investor Morten Lund is a year older today. Have a [...]

Kleiner Perkins has raised $932.3 million out of a targeted $1 billion for its KPCB Digital Growth Fund, according to an SEC filing dated March 11.

The fact that the firm had increased the target for the fund from $750 million to $1 billion was first reported by Fortune’s Term Sheet blog on February 16. In fact, Term Sheet reported that KP was raising in excess of a billion dollars.

The regulatory filing shows that the target for the fund is $1 billion and that $67.67 million remains to be raised. The document also shows that KP sold its first stake in the fund on Nov. 17.

Former eBay Inc Chief Executive Meg Whitman will join leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a source close to her said on Tuesday. The news comes nearly five months after Whitman lost out on a bid to become governor of California. She was one of the most high-profile Republicans running [...]

Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO and Republican candidate for governor of California, is trying to connect with young, Web savvy voters. But her new attack ad against her Democratic opponent, Jerry Brown, looks like major misstep toward that end. Fifty-one seconds into the sharply critical ad about Brown, the attorney general and former governor, a screenshot of him appears, [...]

Meg Whitman, the former eBay chief executive and now Republican candidate for governor of California, has repeatedly told Californians how tough she is. Apparently, at least once during her decade-long tenure at the auction powerhouse, she showed it, shoving an employee in an executive conference room at eBay’s headquarters.

Brad Stone of the New York Times has the story this morning, writing:

Maybe it was something in the water at eBay. Three years after the failed gubernatorial bid of former eBay executive Steve Westly, Meg Whitman, a 52-year-old Republican who became a billionaire as eBay’s CEO, has announced an exploratory committee to make a 2010 run for the California’s governor’s office. Whitman was most recently an adviser to Senator [...]