Even before moving into the new offices, we had been sued for copyright infringement by the RIAA (on behalf of the major record labels), the Harry Fox Agency, which owned the publishing rights to a large portion of the songs in our "library," and a number of smaller record labels. ^[15] This had happened January 21, 10 long days after we had gone live with My.MP3.com. While this wasn't entirely unexpected, it was slightly worrisome, especially the language in some of the reports: "clear case of copyright infringement…" etc. Special "All Staff" meetings were called where we were told how this was normal and to be expected. We received updates and assurances in the weekly Chairman's Chat about how we were doing, who we were talking to, how we had enough money in the bank and were fine, but it was worrisome. Meanwhile, we hadn't stopped ripping CDs; instead, we were adding 1,500 new CDs to our database per day.

All said and done, though, I don't remember much open talk or concern about our demise. I'm not sure if this is because people had drunk the Kool-Aid and believed we would be OK—after all, it was in their best interest to believe this (who wants to be unhappy and all doom and gloom when it's your potential fortune at risk)—or if people just weren't talking about it. To be honest, there was a certain air of invincibility that we carried with us: we had a dream team of engineers assembled, had solved every challenge which faced us, had revenue streams … it didn't seem like anything could affect us. We were changing the world. It was obvious to us that this was the next step for music, that the record labels were behind the times and would have to come around sooner or later to the fact that music was going to be distributed digitally, that DRM was dead in the water and always would be, and that here we were, providing them with a tailor-made service, complete with top-notch statistical reporting so that they knew exactly how many times a song was played, and by whom. The data mining opportunities were endless, the opportunities in general were endless, and really, it would just allow them to reach more consumers. In fact, we wanted to pay them money in licensing. We were already seeking to pay artists directly when their songs were played, just so that they would get the royalties that they deserved. How could this not work?

But as time went on, as more and more court dates came and passed, some of this optimism faded, too. People all over the company were leaving in dribs and drabs. They left for different reasons—some had reached dead ends because they had fallen from favor, not able to work on anything interesting, but instead just passing the time (and becoming less productive as a result), others because they were bored at the direction the company was going: we had shifted into "make money, maintain/upgrade infrastructure" mode and away from the initial "change the world" mindset which had been so exciting in the beginning. Sure, My.MP3.com was an attempt at changing the world, but it was built, and mid-flight we were merely watching to see if it cleared the earth's orbit or got sucked back down. It was our world-changing shot, and the rest of our resources were geared toward opportunities which would bring in revenue, and these were rarely world-changing.

Then, we had our first layoff in engineering. There had been culls in other departments before, but we had never really been affected up until now; we had been somehow safe. I found out recently that the folks in the other building referred to the engineering building as the Panda Preserve: the place where the rare breed got all the appropriate care and feeding and was removed from all the dangers of the real world. No more. The glass had been shattered.

Mind you, some (all?) of the people who were laid off in the first round had ceased to perform for whatever reason—morale, burnout, or just being given fewer opportunities, resulting in a general decline in productivity. It was hard to go from "top of the world" to "we're giving you the grunt work because you pissed someone off," just as it was difficult to keep up the hectic pace that a lot of people were putting in, especially when there was always someone who was willing to step up and take your place, either someone within the company or someone who was thrilled at the chance to work for MP3.com. I think my dear friend and former cubicle mate, James Park, left in that cull. He had never been the same after the My.MP3.com release: for whatever reason, be it the JavaScript, his ignorance of the hierarchy and bringing people in to meetings, or possibly something as simple as merely dropping by a My.MP3.com release party but not staying for hours to hang out with the managers and engineers who made the site work, he somehow dropped to second-class-citizen status. He had never really been given a chance to prove himself again.

Personally, I was still enjoying the work at MP3.com, but I was starting to entertain thoughts about my general career trajectory. I had entered MP3.com a person who wanted to work with other geeks, who was searching for that camaraderie and circle of peers that would provide a rapport and, in the end, raise the level of the work I performed through collaboration and the bar set by those surrounding me. The one other thing I had been looking for was the ability to change the world. Three months before interviewing at MP3.com, I had been discussing the future of music in the digital age with a fellow traveler from the Netherlands. Here I had the opportunity to effect that change.

But as the company moved on, as we stopped focusing on the My.MP3.com service—or at least, while it was in legal limbo—and as the motives of senior management started to come into question (whisperings of "cashing out" and "selling us out so they can become millionaires" being heard for the first time), I started reconsidering what I was here for.

For the first time, I started to feel like my path was actually in chemical engineering (which I held a degree in but had never pursued, as Boulder had been lacking in entry-level chemical engineering jobs). This gut feeling was strengthened by the fact that I felt slightly out of my depth "academically" with some of the people around me: I had taken computer science courses, but perhaps didn't have the same level of in-depth theory that they did. I was able to do my job, but it served as a juxtaposition: I did have that knowledge in chemical engineering, why wasn't I going that route and bringing all of my resources to bear? These thoughts, coupled with a feeling coming into this job that if the "being a programmer at a dot-com surrounded by amazing programmers isn't my bag, then I'm probably done in the computer industry," formed a kernel of a question in the back of my mind: nothing solid yet, but the crystal had been seeded.

Meanwhile, our legal battle was slowly sliding away. We had settled with two, then three of the major labels, but things weren't looking good for the remaining ones. Blame was placed on the judge involved, optimistic rhetoric abounded in the weekly chats, but Robin seemed a bit wearier, and some people were tuning out. Or were they? It's really hard to tell what the general mindset was, as people were still busy and there was still more than enough work to do. The big difference was that the buzz seemed to be gone. People didn't seem to be clamoring to work on projects: they did their jobs. They were still working 60- to 80-hour weeks, but it was to keep up, not to break new ground.

The final shift in mindset for me occurred over the course of a quick-turnaround, four-week race-to-market project where we built our first subscription service. It was an adrenaline rush to work on (I'm a big fan of Get-It-Done, compressed-timeline projects), but miscommunication between the QA department and the infrastructure department (that would be me) killed me. It seemed like two or three days a week I would fire off an email at 4:30 a.m. saying, "Here's what I've done. Here's what should work. Here's what doesn't work. I'm going home and going to bed. I'll be in at 10:00 a.m.," only to get a phone call three hours later from my manager saying that something didn't work. There are two problems with this: (a) I was working my ass off to try to get this thing to work, and calling me at 8:00 a.m. is not going to solve the problem, and (b), as often as not, QA had not read my email and were complaining about something which I had stated did not work. Ugh.

I don't blame my manager. I know that she was getting it from the VP, who was hearing it from the director of QA that our stuff didn't work. ^[16] The problem was that I was starting to have nightmares about my cell phone ringing and I felt like I was putting my heart and soul into this project and getting no respect for doing so. Not long after the project went live (according to schedule), I tuned out. Sure, I got a nice set of (not-quite-worthless) stock options for my hard work, but that couldn't give me back my state of mind or make me feel like I would be respected for working hard. I was done.

I kept working at MP3.com for another year, and after a while, things got better: one of the VPs—Dan O'Neill—took me under his wing and worked with me to start performing again. It was a big deal that he took the time and energy, and it worked to a certain extent. I was getting work done and getting code written, but my heart still wasn't in it. I was working 40–50 hours a week, and that's really not up to snuff in that environment. A day after the planes hit the Twin Towers, I was gone.