John David McAfee (September 18, 1945 – June 23, 2021) was a British-American computer programmer, businessman, and two-time presidential candidate who ran unsuccessfully for the Libertarian Party candidature in 2016 and 2020. In 1987, he created the first commercial anti-virus software, McAfee Associates, to sell it. In 1994, he quit and sold his remaining ownership in the company. McAfee later became the company’s most vocal opponent, asking customers to uninstall the company’s anti-virus software, which he called bloatware. He criticised the company’s persistent use of his name in branding, which has endured despite a brief corporate rebranding attempt under Intel control. McAfee’s fortunes plunged after the 2007-2008 financial crisis. He formed the firms Tribal Voice and McAfee Associates after leaving McAfee Associates.
John Mcafee’s net worth
John McAfee was an American technology entrepreneur who died with a net worth of $4 million. He rose to prominence and fortune as the creator and CEO of the anti-virus software company McAfee. At the height of his software career, John McAfee’s net worth was well over $100 million.
Regrettably, he lost the majority of his fortune as a result of poor investments and the 2008 global recession. Later in life, John was involved in a number of legal squabbles. He died, reportedly by suicide, on June 23, 2021, at the age of 75.
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John Mcafee’s early life
John David McAfee was born on a US Army base in Cinderford, England, on September 18, 1945. His mother is from the United Kingdom, while his father is an American soldier stationed at the post. McAfee grew up in the United States, in Salem, Virginia. He has stated that he feels equally at home in Britain and in America.
McAfee’s father was an abusive drinker who committed suicide with a gun when he was fifteen years old. He attended Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, and finished with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1967. In 2008, the school bestowed upon him an honorary Doctor of Science (Sc.D.).
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John Mcafee’s early career
McAfee worked at NASA’s Center for Space Studies in New York City after graduating from college from 1968 to 1970. He worked on the application as a programmer. Following his departure from NASA, he worked as a software designer at Univac and subsequently as an operating system architect at Xerox.
McAfee transitioned to consulting in 1978, when he joined Computer Sciences Company as a software consultant. He then worked for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton for two years, from 1980 to 1982. McAfee began working on virus-fighting software in the 1980s while working for Lockheed Martin.
After getting a copy of the Brain computer virus, he began working on anti-virus software in particular. McAfee quit his employment in 1987 to launch his own computer anti-virus company, McAfee Associates. A few years later, in 1992, the corporation was incorporated in Delaware. He stayed with the company for another two years before leaving in 1994.
John Mcafee losing his fortune
In the mid-1990s, John became dissatisfied with the software industry and chose to sell his whole investment in his namesake company. John made a $100 million fortune as a result of the sale. And, while $100 million is nothing to sneeze at, had John kept his investment, he would have been a millionaire by 2010, when McAfee was acquired by Intel for $7.7 billion.
Maybe a multibillionaire with dividends and other benefits. To make matters worse, John failed to keep his $100 million wealth. A series of poor investments, notably a significant bet on Lehman Brothers’ bonds, wiped out large portions of John’s net worth, forcing him to sell real estate and other assets for pennies on the dollar.
McAfee, for example, sold a $25 million Colorado mansion for $5.7 million. He also sold a Hawaiian mansion, a New Mexico ranch, and a Cessna private plane.
