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thing with an antenna. I was in there, a little bit showing off because it is so new nobody knows it exists. I'm calling my mum. (Finn) comes in and he's like, 'What the hell?' We got to talk and became friends. We've done two Gumballs (Gumball Rally) together and travelled. Whenever I went on a holiday, we always went together.

"He has the best social skills. He picks up the girls. He's really good at his job when it comes to relationship management with advertisers and going out to the fairs, making a lot of friends and really competent socially."

BY 1994, DOTCOM and Ortmann had created DataProtect, a business which offered network penetration testing — simulating a hacker attack on companies so they could assess their security. The business legitimised the skill-set which had caused Dotcom trouble. DataProtect was a "white hat" security consultancy; bad hackers were "black hats". Dotcom and Ortmann offered insights, protection and systems penetration testing to blue chip clients. Customers included Daimler and the German stock exchange. The business ran for seven years, growing to a revenue stream worth millions of dollars and with 30 staff until he sold it in 2001. Dotcom's wealth was already extraordinary by the turn of the century — he holidayed over the Millennium New Year's Eve on a private super-yacht in the Caribbean — and his profile grew to match the playboy lifestyle.

As the business developed, so did the range of possibilities. There were also the dreams, as many young men have, "after watching these James Bond movies" of the mansion on private islands, or an oil tanker converted into a super yacht. "Crazy stuff," he calls it. No matter, he says, because after the accident it all became possible. Before the accident, money was governed by unspoken rules — "doing the right thing", he says. "But I realise as long as the money is in the bank it really belongs to the bank, it doesn't belong to you." You earn, you save, you pay tax and then you die. And then, in many countries, when your family inherits, inheritance tax takes another bite. "You've already paid, for your whole life, accumulating that wealth. I'm like, dude, I'm not doing that. That's stupid. This is my life. I'm spiritual but not religious. I don't know what's going to happen when I'm gone. I will make this worth something while I'm here. I'll enjoy it."

The experiences and trips became increasingly outrageous. For the Millennium, Dotcom also chartered a private jet, invited a handful of friends and jetted out to see the world.

"Tomorrow, we are going to north Africa. From there we fly onto Brazil and we are in Brazil and sitting there thinking, where are we going now? And then we go to Cuba. We go to Havana and wherever we go we stay in the presidential suite of the biggest five-star hotels.

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