John McAfee was born in 1945 on a United States military base in England. His father was a soldier and his mother was British. The family later moved to Virginia and McAfee grew up there. He has dual citizenship, UK and USA.
"I feel British and American. There's not much difference between our two countries," McAfee said in an interview.
Tragedy struck when, at the age of 15, his alcoholic father committed suicide with a gun. McAfee later became an alcoholic, but was still able to maintain his academic performance.
He graduated with a degree in mathematics in 1967 from Roanoke College. However, he later failed to obtain a PhD because he was expelled from Northeast Louisiana State College. The reason is that he slept with a young female student he was supposed to be teaching.
The student then got married. McAfee's genius led him to work at prestigious companies as a programmer, including NASA, General Electric, Siemens, Univac and Xerox. At the same time, he was addicted to drugs.
"I hid it from my mother and sometimes my wife. But at work, in some companies drugs are consumed openly during lunch in the office. That was a strange time," said John McAfee as quoted by the BBC.
Big trouble hit in the early 1980s. His wife left him and his company, Omex, fired him because of his drug addiction. "1984 was the last time I used drugs. I stopped, went to the Alcoholics Anonymous organization," he said asking for help.
However, McAfee admits his bad nature is still there. Despite the problems, at that time McAfee was accepted back to work at the elite company Lockheed Martin. This is where he discovered a computer virus. "I've never heard of a virus before. It's interesting to me," McAfee said.
He managed to control the computer virus. That was the beginning when he was inspired to build his own company called McAfee Associates in 1987. John McAfee made the company big before deciding to step down in 1994.
"Computer viruses will always be there and will only get worse. I'm just doing what I can at the forefront of this industry as long as I can," he said. Then, McAfee sold to Intel for billions of dollars in 2011.
McAfee retired rich. His wealth peaked in 2007 at an estimated USD 100 million, before falling drastically due to failed investments.
Since his resignation, McAfee's life has been full of adventure and great controversy. For example, in 2012 McAfee caused a stir after one of his neighbors was found dead, and McAfee was labeled a 'person of interest' in the death of his neighbor, Gregory Faull.
McAfee openly admitted not paying taxes for years, because he considered them illegal, as he tweeted in 2019. This was also used by the US Department of Justice to extradite McAfee after his arrest in Spain, which is tax evasion .
In Spain, his story ended with suicide in prison after his extradition to the US was approved. The Catalan regional police, Mossos d'Esquadra, confirmed this. The 75-year-old breathed his last in Brians 2 prison near Barcelona, Wednesday night local time.
Amidst all the controversy, he still plays a role in the tech world. "I've been called paranoid, schizophrenic, the wild child of Silicon Valley. But I'm actually an entrepreneur, I always have been. I'm curious and like to solve problems."
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