📸

By then, Richardson had begun dating Lee, who reported to the CEO. When the new Interwoven CEO found out that one of his lieutenants was dating one of his directors, he told the other board members even as Lee resigned. Three weeks later, Richardson was also asked to step down. With more-established venture firms coming in and more-experienced directors available, Richardson would have been on her way out anyway, she and another director said. “She just made it easier for us by screwing up,” the other director said. “I’m not a hard-core moralist, but serious people don’t do this sort of stuff. She was a complete amateur.”

Ong said he knew about the relationship between Lee and Richardson before the new CEO did. He didn’t act on the information because so much else was going on, including a fierce board debate about the company’s direction. But Ong said it “absolutely” bothered him. “It really caught me off guard. It was so out of the norm for me. I would say things in executive staff I expected to be private, and other people would know about it. It caused problems at the board level.” While Richardson had done good things for Interwoven, Ong said, he was relieved when she left.

In June 1999, Richardson decided to leave JK&B as well. She took two months off, then joined Lee at six-month-old Xtime in August. At the same time, she decided to play the role of mentor, investor, and early-stage executive at other firms as well, and she called a few people she knew. The meeting with Amram was the first of what she had expected would be a series of exploratory efforts to find the companies she would work with. After he told her about Napster, it would be the last such meeting.

By then, Richardson had known Amram for nearly ten years. She had known Bill Bales for several years as well, and she knew he would be Napster’s vice president of business development, often the second most important position at Valley start-ups. Amram told her that he thought John Fanning, who retained majority control of Napster, was a good entrepreneur, just not someone he wanted as a CEO. And Amram said that together, he and Richardson could handle any problems with Fan-

📸