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Altos office in early 1997. There she met the man who would be her main investment contact at Interwoven, early employee John Lee.

Interwoven made software that allowed multiple people to collaborate on a document and track the changes. The company was one of Richardson’s first picks at JK&B, and it would turn the firm’s $3 million investment into $300 million. It made her reputation as a VC, and it made her and many of her contacts rich. Interwoven prospered because “it had a fabulous CEO, who then brought in a fabulous management team, and it had a tremendous market opportunity,” said Kathryn Gould of Foundation Capital, a venture firm that invested after JK&B did. And Richardson had been well ahead of the curve in providing financial support. “She believed in our vision before any of the other VCs really saw it,” said Interwoven founder and first CEO Peng Ong.

But the early days at Interwoven, out of view and before its initial public offering in October 1999, were far from fabulous, as was its second CEO, a gregarious salesman named Steve Farber. The company tried to raise substantial amounts of money before it had a working product and serious customers. Farber was besotted by the Web, and he focused on shifting Interwoven’s software to the Internet instead of selling to large companies. Now chairman, Ong had problems with Farber, and eventually the rest of the board did as well. Richardson, an Interwoven director, often flew out to Los Altos to calm the troops. Farber “was focused on the wrong things—saving money, not leading or strategy,” she said.

It was hard for Richardson to act against Farber, investors said, because she was one of the most active in inspecting the business and had developed a good relationship with him. JK&B chairman David Kronfeld said that one of Richardson’s best attributes was her ability to form such close bonds with entrepreneurs. “She clearly had a very hands-on relationship with Interwoven,” Kronfeld said. Her relationship with Farber was so good that he got the wrong idea, sometimes suggesting that the two of them run off together. Eventually, after a final blowup by Ong, the board asked Richardson to fire Farber, and she did. Interwoven went looking for both a new CEO and new investors, and wound up with winners in 1998: veteran software executive Martin Brauns and Foundation Capital, both of which agreed to get involved on the condition that the other one did.

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