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went into another area, interrupting a meeting to look into the trash bucket in this room. I advised Mr. Amram that was enough, that now he had to leave. Mr. Amram went into the eating area of the company and wanted to remove several pictures from the wall. I advised Mr. Amram that if he wanted the pictures he would have to take this matter up in court at a later date. Mr. Amram appeared to be confused and on some sort of medication. He was becoming very uncooperative and had to be led out of the building with his items by officers." Amram denied having been on drugs of any sort, and he said the officer's reference to paper clips "should be to the computer disks" he found in his desk.

Individual directors and former loyalists under Amram debated whether their leader had fallen victim to a raging ego necessary for the success of many corporate leaders, from Larry Ellison to Ted Turner, or had suffered some kind of self-destructive break. "It's a sad story," one director said. "He's got a lot of energy, he's very well educated, and he's very bright. And he thought himself right out of the box. He built this racing car, we got it halfway around the track, and he suddenly made a right turn into the stands." Individual would eventually be sold for a fraction of what it had been worth at its IPO.

By then Amram had taken time off, moved to Silicon Valley, and joined a new company, ValiCert Inc., which specialized in authenticating Internet transactions, like the bigger company VeriSign Inc. From the meltdown at Individual, Amram learned to distance his feelings from the fervor that can surround business leaders. "It was a very deep personal change," he said. "The important thing for me was that I came out of it with significant revelations about staying calm in the heat of the battle." Amram would need that inner calm during his time at Napster. But his psychological evolution had a downside as well: Amram grew more inclined to forgive unwise behavior in partners who reminded him of his younger self.

Amram decided to do his future investment deals on the side, as an angel investor. When Fanning began calling his mentor in the summer of 1999, telling him that Napster was going to be big, Amram put him off. "I'm not going to invest if you're the CEO," Amram told him, as gently as he could. "I don't think you're effective."

But in August, Amram was impressed by Andy Evans's interest and

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