John McAfee made his name through his antivirus software that shares his name. However, his colourful life also saw him go on the run over suspicions he killed his neighbour, face criminal charges for crypto fraud, and questions over how exactly he died.
So, what is the story behind John McAfee, and what was the entrepreneur’s net worth?
Who was John McAfee?
John McAfee was born just days after the end of World War 2. He was born on a US Army base on 18 September 1945 in Gloucestershire, England. His father, Don, was an American soldier stationed in the UK, while his mother, Joan Williams, was British.
The family moved to Virginia in the US while McAfee was still young. He is thought to have been repeatedly beaten by his father when he was growing up until he was 15 years old when Don killed himself.
In 1967, McAfee acquired a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics in Virginia before then going on to pursue a doctorate at the Northeast Louisiana State College. However, he never completed his course after being expelled from the school for starting a relationship with an undergraduate.
The student, whose name remains unknown, went on to become McAfee’s first wife.
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After having been kicked out of university, McAfee’s first career was as a software engineer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1968. He was part of NASA’s Apollo program up until 1970, where he went on to join the Xerox team as an Operating Systems programmer.
After that, he worked for several startups, such as the Computer Sciences Corporation and Lockheed. It was at Lockheed where McAfee discovered the Brain computer virus.
The virus inspired him, and in the late 1980s, McAfee developed the first commercial antivirus software. He then founded a startup named McAfee Associates Inc. to sell the software.
His company created the world’s first commercial antivirus software and went public in 1992. In the following year, McAfee vacated the CEO position of the company, maintaining his position as the chief technician. In 1994, he sold all his shares for about $100million.
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McAfee later launched several entities, starting with an instant messaging platform named PowWow in 2000. He also joined Zone Labs’ board of directors, the company that aided in developing the Firewall software.
In 2009, a report from the New York Times claimed that McAfee’s investments and worth had taken a big hit from the 2007-2008 global recession. The damages allegedly dipped his net worth to just $4million.
Looking to branch out into new opportunities, in 2010 McAfee founded a herbal medicine manufacturing startup named QuorumEx with his friend Allison Adonizio. Meanwhile, his company McAfee Associates inc., was acquired by Intel for $7.7billion.
During his QuorumEx days, he lived in Belize, where his personal life started to suffer and became an alcoholic. Just two years later, McAfee was in trouble with the authorities and arrested several times. Police even named him as a suspect in his neighbour Greg Faull’s death. The US Navy veteran was found dead in his home after being shot in the head.
Amid the police investigation McAfee fled to Guatemala but he was arrested by local authorities for entering the country illegally and was deported back to the US.
While McAfee was never formally charged with murder, a judge in Belize ordered him to pay more than $25million to Faull’s family. However, the tech entrepreneur refused to pay up and maintained his innocence.
“I was never charged with murder by Belizean authorities or any other authority. It was a suit based entirely on media reporting,” he said at the time.
In 2016, John McAfee decided to try his hand at politics, running for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination but failed to be selected for the ticket. He tried his luck again in 2020 but once again to no avail.
John McAfee crypto scams
John McAfee was arrested in Spain in October 2020 after the US tax authorities and the Department of Justice warranted his capture for tax evasion. He also faced crypto pump and dump charges from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
McAfee was about to board a plane to Istanbul with a British passport when he was detained.
The software engineer was accused of having bought large amounts of low prices altcoins and promoted investing in the tokens on social media to artificially increase the price before quickly selling them off.
“McAfee Team members collectively earned more than $2million in illicit profits from their altcoin scalping activities,” the Department of Justice alleged.
Manhattan US Attorney Audrey Strauss added that McAfee had pumped up the price of “various cryptocurrencies through false and misleading statements to conceal their true, self-interested motives”.
However, the tech pioneer died before he stood trial for the crimes.
John McAfee’s death
In June 2021, after the US successfully filed an extradition order to transfer him from Spain back to Tennessee. However, McAfee was found hanging in his prison cell. He died on June 23, at the age of 75.
However, his wife Janice Dyson claimed her husband had been killed by the US authorities in order to make an example of him.
She said: “Now the US authorities are determined to have John die in prison to make an example of him for speaking out against the corruption within their government agencies.
“There is no hope of him ever having a fair trial in America.”
A number of cryptocurrency backers around the world on Wednesday posted tweets of condolence. In his last public tweet on June 18, McAfee wrote: “All power corrupts. Take care which powers you allow a democracy to wield.”
Despite his death being registered by the Spanish authorities, some have claimed that he is still alive.
McAfee’s ex-girlfriend Samantha Venegas claimed to have received a phone call shortly after he died in which he said he had managed to escape.
Venegas said at the time: “After his death, I got a call from Texas. ‘It’s me, John. I paid off people to pretend that I am dead, but I am not dead.
“‘There are only three persons in this world that knows that I’m still alive.’ And then he asked me to run away with him.”
There is little evidence to support the theory.
What was John McAfee’s net worth?
At its peak, McAfee’s net worth was estimated to be around $100million. However, things turned for the worse when he got involved in some very serious law violations, like carrying unlicensed firearms.
These deals led to McAfee’s net worth plummeting to $4million.
Nonetheless, McAfee is thought to have recovered some of his losses to have a net worth of $10million when he died.
