Ron Ziegler
White House Press Secretary (1939-2003)
John McAfee was a British-American computer programmer and businessman who founded the McAfee antivirus software company. He had a tumultuous personal and professional life, including run-ins with the law, and unsuccessfully ran for US president twice as a Libertarian Party candidate. His life and controversies have made him a figure of intrigue and fascination.
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About the John McAfee
John David McAfeewas a British-American computer programmer, businessman, and two-time presidential candidate who unsuccessfully sought the Libertarian Party nomination for president of the United States in 2016 and in 2020. In 1987, he wrote the first commercial anti-virus software, founding McAfee Associates to sell his creation. He resigned in 1994 and sold his remaining stake in the company. McAfee became the company’s most vocal critic in later years, urging consumers to uninstall the company’s anti-virus software, which he characterized as bloatware. He disavowed the company’s continued use of his name in branding, a practice that has persisted in spite of a short-lived corporate rebrand attempt under Intel ownership.
McAfee’s fortunes plummeted in the financial crisis of 2007-2008. After leaving McAfee Associates, he founded the companies Tribal Voice (makers of the PowWow chat program), QuorumEx, and Future Tense Central, among others, and was involved in leadership positions in the companies Everykey, MGT Capital Investments, and Luxcore, among others. His personal and business interests included smartphone apps, cryptocurrency, yoga, light-sport aircraft and recreational drug use. He resided for a number of years in Belize, but returned to the United States in 2013 while wanted in Belize for questioning on suspicion of murder.
In October 2020, McAfee was arrested in Spain over U.S. tax evasion charges. U.S. federal prosecutors brought criminal and civil charges alleging that McAfee had failed to file income taxes over a four-year period. On 23 June 2021, he was found dead due to an apparent suicide by hanging in his prison cell near Barcelona shortly after the Spanish National Court authorized his extradition to the U.S. His death generated speculation and theories about the possibility that he was murdered. McAfee’s wife, Janice McAfee, said she did not believe McAfee died by suicide.
Frequently Asked Questions
John McAfee was a British-American computer programmer, businessman, and two-time presidential candidate who founded the McAfee antivirus software company in 1987.
John McAfee was a computer programmer who founded the McAfee antivirus software company in 1987, before later going on to start several other technology companies.
John McAfee unsuccessfully sought the Libertarian Party nomination for president of the United States in 2016 and 2020.
John McAfee became a vocal critic of the McAfee antivirus software company he had founded, urging consumers to uninstall the software. He also had various legal issues and controversies throughout his life.
John McAfee was found dead by apparent suicide in his prison cell in Spain in 2021, shortly after the Spanish National Court authorized his extradition to the US on tax evasion charges.
After leaving McAfee Associates, John McAfee founded companies like Tribal Voice, QuorumEx, and Future Tense Central, and was involved in leadership roles in Everykey, MGT Capital Investments, and Luxcore.
John McAfee resided for a number of years in Belize, but returned to the United States in 2013 while wanted in Belize for questioning on suspicion of murder.
2 Quotes by John McAfee
- 1.
Limit use of shareware and public domain software to systems without fixed disks. If you do use them on fixed disks, allocate separate subdirectories… Public domain or shareware software should never be placed in the root directory.
John McAfeeBritish-American programmer and businessman (1945-2021)
- 2.
If operating in a network environment, do not place public domain or shareware programs in a common file-server directory that could be accessible to any other PC on the network.
John McAfeeBritish-American programmer and businessman (1945-2021)