John McAfee
Built the first commercial antivirus and walked away with millions; the following three decades defy summary.
- Born
- 1945 · Cinderford, England (raised in Salem, Virginia)
- Roots
- English-born to a US Army father and English mother
- Family
- Working class
- His alcoholic father shot himself when John was 15 — a wound he spoke of for the rest of his life.
- Education
- Roanoke College (mathematics); a doctoral program ended in expulsion, by his account
- Started with
- A magazine article
- Read about the 'Brain' computer virus in 1986 and started selling protection from his living room the next year.
- Affiliations & societies
- Libertarian PartyDocumented
- Sought the party's US presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.
- Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.
The pathway
- 1968 · age 22Programmer years
NASA contractors, Univac, Xerox — alongside, by his own accounts, prodigious drug use.
- 1987 · age 41McAfee Associates
The first commercial antivirus, distributed as shareware from his home.
- 1992 · age 46The Michelangelo panic~$100M
His doomsday estimates for the virus are widely criticized — and sales soar; he exits with a reported ~$100M by 1994.
- 2008 · age 62Fortune gone, Belize next
The crash cuts his wealth to a reported $4M; he relocates to a jungle compound.
- 2012 · age 67Flight from Belize
Named a person of interest — never charged — after a neighbor's murder, he flees the country in disguise.
- 2020 · age 74Arrested in Spain
US tax-evasion charges after years promoting cryptocurrencies for pay.
- 2021 · age 75Dies in a Barcelona cell
Hours after extradition is approved; ruled suicide, doubted loudly by his followers — a doubt he himself had seeded with a tattoo.
Sources
Compiled from these references and contemporaneous press reporting. Figures are approximate; verify before relying on them.