The Wild Life of John McAfee | Refugee, Prison, Net Worth, Success, and More

The wild life of John McAfee is almost unbelievable as the founder of McAfee, most popularly known for its anti-viruses, lived quite a "wild" life. The story of his life sounds like an action film and here's the timeline of how everything came to place.

The Early Life of John McAfee

John McAfee lost his father to suicide at the age of 15.

-Wired

McAfee went to Roanoke College where he sold magazines door to door as a "shrewd entrepreneur."

-Wired

John McAfee learned coding at his job at a company that coded punch-card systems during the late '60s. He used his knowledge at a Missouri Pacific Railroad helping them calibrate train schedules. This is also where he started trying illegal substances.

McAfee moved to Silicon Valley in 1970 even working at NASA's Institute for Space Studies

-NBC San Diego, Wired

John McAfee and the Creation of McAfee Associates

In the 1980s, John McAfee worked for Lockheed experiencing the first computer virus in 1986. He decided to start his own company.

Company McAfee Associates started and by the end of 1980s, it was making $5 million per year.

-Digital Trends

The Michelangelo virus hit in 1992 and this propelled McAfee to popularity as an estimate of 5 million computers were hit.

-Motherboard

The Start of John McAfee's Wild Life

John McAfee resigned in 1994 and sold his shares worth $100 million two years later.

He decided to keep a low profile giving lectures at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

-MIT Technology Review

In 2008, his fortune shrunk from $100 million to $4 million.

-The New York Times

In the late 2000s, McAfee moved to Belize and sold his land. He wanted to get into antibiotics partnering with Allison Adonizio to start Quorumex.

-Gizmodo

He suddenly became convicted in Belize.

-Wired

John McAfee Legal Troubles

He hung out at a saloon called Lover's Bar just staring at people. He reportedly became obsessed with watching people and after six months, he even wrote that he did not need any more connection to society

He became a "person of interest" in 2012 when his neighbor Gregory Faull was shot to death. McAfee fled shortly after being questioned by the government of Belize.

-Reuters

John McAfee was then arrested in Guatemala potentially due to Vice flying two reporters posting pictures of McAfee with GPS coordinates.

He was shortly caught by police and arrested on illegal entry charges.

McAfee suffered a number of heart-related health issues while detained.

McAfee was expelled from Guatemala then finally sent back to the United States.

-Gawker

He was followed by a media frenzy ensued. McAfee made things weirder as he uploaded a bizarre video of himself.

-YouTube

On October 6, 2020, McAfee had a complaint from the US SEC alleging him to be promoting ICOs Presenting himself as an impartial investor despite being paid $23 million allegedly.

In March 5, 2021, McAfee had been indicted by the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York for allegedly fraudulently promoting pump and dump schemes.

Most of the information in this article came from Business Insider but the rest have been scattered from across the web. John McAfee is truly an interesting character as this page alone won't cover everything that's happened in his life.

Related Article: John McAfee: Stop using Google, protect your privacy

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Urian B.

ⓒ 2024 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Join the Discussion
Real Time Analytics