John McAfee

John David McAfee (born 18 September 1945 in Cinderford, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England; died 23 June 2021) was a British-American computer programmer and businessman best known for founding McAfee Associates in 1987 and creating VirusScan, one of the first commercially available antivirus products. He left day-to-day involvement in the antivirus business in the mid-1990s and spent the following decades moving through a series of other ventures, becoming increasingly known to the public for personal controversies, including a 2012 fugitive episode in Belize tied to a neighbor's murder investigation, two unsuccessful Libertarian Party presidential campaigns, and a U.S. tax-evasion and securities-fraud prosecution that ended with his death in Spanish custody.

Founding McAfee Associates

McAfee earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Roanoke College in Virginia in 1967 and subsequently worked in a series of computing and defense-industry jobs, including as a programmer for Lockheed. After learning about the Brain virus — one of the earliest PC viruses, written by brothers Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi in Lahore, Pakistan — McAfee founded McAfee Associates in Santa Clara, California, in 1987 to develop and sell software that could detect and remove such infections. The company's flagship product, VirusScan, was among the first antivirus programs sold commercially, arriving the same year that several other early antivirus products, including G Data's Atari ST scanner and the software that became NOD32, also appeared. McAfee left Lockheed in 1989 to work on the company full-time.

Growth and Departure from the Antivirus Business

McAfee Associates distinguished itself by distributing VirusScan as shareware over bulletin board systems and, later, the internet — users could try the software for free and were asked to pay a registration fee if they kept using it. The approach spread the software quickly and, combined with growing public alarm over computer viruses, made the company highly profitable: by 1990 McAfee was reportedly earning about $5 million a year from the business. By the early 1990s the antivirus market had become crowded, with roughly a dozen and a half commercial products on the market, including Symantec's Norton AntiVirus. McAfee Associates was incorporated in Delaware in 1992 and went public the same year. McAfee stepped down as CEO in August 1993, remaining with the company as chief technical officer under his successor, and in 1994 he sold his remaining stake in the company and ended his operational involvement entirely. The company he founded was renamed Network Associates in 1997 after a merger, later reverted to the McAfee name, and passed through ownership by Intel and other parent companies over the following decades; McAfee had no ownership stake in, or control over, the later corporate entity that continued to use his name.

Later Ventures and Public Life

After leaving McAfee Associates, McAfee pursued a wide range of other projects. In 1994 he founded Tribal Voice, developer of the early instant-messaging program PowWow. Around 2000 he invested in the firewall company Zone Labs, which was acquired by Check Point Software in 2003, and the same year opened a yoga and meditation retreat in Colorado, later publishing several books on yoga. In February 2010 he founded QuorumEx, a venture focused on quorum-sensing-based antibiotics, and in 2013 launched Future Tense Central, which developed a networking device called D-Central marketed on privacy grounds. In May 2016 he became CEO of MGT Capital Investments, a small public company he tried to pivot toward cryptocurrency mining and cybersecurity branding, stepping down in 2017 and departing in January 2018; in August 2018 he became associated with the cryptocurrency project Luxcore. Through much of this period he was also an outspoken, frequently provocative commentator on cryptocurrency, promoting numerous coins and initial coin offerings on social media.

The Belize Incident

By the early 2010s McAfee was living on the island of Ambergris Caye in Belize. On 11 November 2012, his neighbor, American expatriate Gregory Faull, was found shot dead at his home after a dispute involving McAfee's dogs. Belizean police named McAfee a person of interest and sought to question him, but he refused to cooperate, went into hiding, and publicly denied any involvement in Faull's death while contacting journalists, including from Wired, to describe his flight from authorities. After roughly three weeks in hiding, McAfee crossed into Guatemala, where he was detained by Guatemalan police on 5 December 2012; he was deported and flown back to the United States on 12 December 2012. He was never charged in connection with Faull's killing, and Belizean police later stated he was not considered a suspect. In November 2018, a Florida court entered a default judgment ordering McAfee to pay $25 million to Faull's estate in a wrongful-death civil suit after McAfee did not appear to contest it.

Final Years, Arrest, and Death

McAfee sought the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination twice, first announcing a campaign under the banner of his own "Cyber Party" on 8 September 2015 before switching to seek the Libertarian nomination on 24 December 2015; he lost the nomination at the 2016 convention. He announced a second run on 3 June 2018, again seeking the Libertarian nomination for 2020, a campaign marked by reversals and controversy that likewise did not succeed. In January 2019 he said he was fleeing U.S. tax authorities, and on 5 October 2020 he was arrested at Barcelona's airport in Spain at the request of U.S. authorities. An indictment unsealed the same day in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee charged him with tax evasion and willful failure to file tax returns covering 2014 through 2018, alleging he had earned millions from cryptocurrency promotion, speaking engagements, and selling rights to his life story while directing income into accounts held by nominees. The following day, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud complaint alleging McAfee made more than $23 million in undisclosed income from touting cryptocurrencies in a "pump-and-dump" scheme, and on 5 March 2021 he was further indicted by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York on related securities and wire fraud charges. On 23 June 2021, Spain's National Court authorized his extradition to face the Tennessee tax charges; hours later, McAfee was found dead in his cell at the Brians 2 penitentiary near Barcelona. Spanish authorities and his lawyer said he had hanged himself, and a Spanish court ruling attributed the death to suicide; his widow, Janice McAfee, publicly disputed the suicide finding and called for a fuller investigation.

Legacy

McAfee's lasting technical legacy rests on his role in founding one of the first commercially successful antivirus companies and popularizing the shareware distribution model that helped the young antivirus industry reach a mass audience in the late 1980s and early 1990s, at a formative moment for the commercial security software business. His subsequent decades of unrelated ventures and escalating personal controversies came to dominate his public profile, and his 2021 death in Spanish custody, on the day his extradition to the United States was approved, closed a long-running federal tax and fraud case without a trial.

Timeline

• 1945-09-18Born in Cinderford, Gloucestershire, England.
• 1987Founded McAfee Associates in Santa Clara, California, and released VirusScan, one of the first commercially marketed antivirus products.
• 1990McAfee Associates reportedly generating about $5 million a year, driven by shareware distribution of VirusScan.
• 1992McAfee Associates incorporated in Delaware and completed its initial public offering.
• 1993-08Stepped down as CEO of McAfee Associates, remaining as chief technical officer.
• 1994Sold his remaining stake in McAfee Associates, ending operational involvement in the company.
• 2012-11-11Neighbor Gregory Faull found shot dead in Belize; McAfee named a person of interest and refuses police questioning.
• 2012-12-05Detained by Guatemalan police after fleeing Belize.
• 2012-12-12Deported from Guatemala and returned to the United States; never charged over Faull's death.
• 2018-11-14Default judgment entered ordering McAfee to pay $25 million to Gregory Faull's estate in a wrongful-death suit.
• 2020-10-05Arrested in Spain and indicted in the U.S. on tax evasion and failure-to-file charges covering 2014-2018.
• 2021-03-05Indicted by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York on securities and wire fraud charges tied to a cryptocurrency 'pump-and-dump' scheme.
• 2021-06-23Found dead by apparent suicide in his cell at Brians 2 prison near Barcelona, hours after a Spanish court approved his extradition to the United States.