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himself as “Chocolate Thunder.” He was a solid worker but was valued more for the comic relief he provided, which included decorating his cubicle with Britney Spears and ’NSYNC posters and displaying an assortment of teen-idol figurines. “It reminded me of high school,” Bales said. “People really enjoyed their popularity, regardless of whether or not there was any substance to their person.” As the team worked late into the night, often sleeping under their desks, some would sneak off to the roof to smoke pot or just stare at the mountains nearby, marveling at the world.

Despite Richardson’s presence and the increasing number of Silicon Valley pedigrees, it sometimes appeared there were no grown-ups in charge. One day, Bales took Shawn, Parker, and Ritter to look at a house where they all might live together. But the real-estate agent pulled Ritter aside and told him that his credit record was the only one of the four that qualified, and he balked at signing the lease alone. There would be no MTV-style house to throw parties in. The foray wasn’t a complete loss, however. Bales asked the real-estate agent if she knew any finance executives looking for work, and she produced the experienced and grandmotherly Lyn Jensen, who became Napster’s first CFO and one of its steadiest hands. Everyone made his own living arrangement. Shawn and Parker moved into a nondescript two-bedroom apartment nearby. For a long time, there was no furniture inside except for a mammoth television set. “I don’t know if we ever used it,” Parker said. “We were too busy.”

In San Mateo, the crew worked late, often ordering Italian food from a restaurant named Amici’s. “Fun, early on, was going to 24 Hour Fitness at two in the morning and lifting weights,” Shawn said. “I tend to be obsessive, so if I could get enough work done during the day, I would reward myself by going to the gym.” Even when he had time to explore, Shawn said, “it’s really hard to find a scene out here that’s not a bunch of geeks.” Instead, after some long programming sessions, the young men blew off steam with drinking games, throwing bottle caps into each other’s beers. The habit of smoking marijuana upstairs became more regular after the crew discovered that the Amici’s delivery boy doubled as a drug dealer. On request, he began hiding pot under the plastic prop in the middle of the pizza that kept the lid from being squashed down. Like average teenage pot smokers, instead of the founders of one of the biggest