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According to the woman’s sworn statement, she had dated Bales for three years before his move east. During that time, he abused alcohol; slapped, bit, and restrained her; and threatened her with a kitchen knife. The relationship ended with his move to Massachusetts.

On his return to the San Francisco area, Bales showed up unannounced at the woman’s job and called her there and at home. She told him they were through. In May 1996, she took a new job at Sun Microsystems and moved from Burlingame to San Mateo. “I did not list my phone number in an attempt to prevent Bales from contacting me, and I gave strict instructions to my family, friends and co-workers not to give any information about me to Bales,” the woman wrote in her declaration. “I was forced to change my lifestyle to hide.”

It wasn’t enough. Bales found out where her new office was and showed up there four days in a row. Then he figured out where she lived and began coming there as well, even though she wouldn’t open the door to him. After midnight one January night, Bales’s ex-girlfriend heard someone outside. She was on the phone with a police dispatcher when her bedroom window broke. She fled back to the bathroom and locked herself inside until the police came. By then, the prowler had left the scene.

“I have not stayed at my residence since that incident for fear that Bales will return and hurt me,” she wrote three weeks later. “His stalking has become more brazen, and it is clear that he is becoming more violent. Bales has followed me, called me and harassed me for over a year and a half. I believe that Bales is not mentally balanced, and coupled with his abuse of alcohol, I believe that he is extremely capable of violent acts.” A judge issued a temporary restraining order to keep Bales away from the woman and her family for three years. (Bales said the woman’s statement contained exaggerations and that he doesn’t have a drinking problem.)

In most walks of life, an estrangement from reality is not a good thing. Yet in early stage business development, in which the job is to bring money and talent to aid something quite small, it has some advantages. That is truer in Silicon Valley than elsewhere, and it was truer than ever there in 1999. Bales’s friend Adrian Scott, an early Napster investor and adviser from San Francisco, had backed a Bales company before Napster and would do so again at Bales’s next venture. “Bill is a challenge to