by Hodler Ash 
John McAfee – Founder of Mcafee Antivirus
Hearing the name John McAfee, what came into your mind ? It is nothing other than the software company McAfee Associate. Yes, it is John McAfee who founded this company in 1987 and ran it until 1994 when he resigned from the company. John McAfee’s life is filled with amazement.
John David McAfee born on September 18, 1945 at Cinderford, Gloucestershire, England on a U.S. Army base to an American father, who was stationed there, and an English mother, he was raised in Salem, Virginia, US. When he was 15 years old, his alcoholic father committed suicide. He completed his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Roanoke College in 1967. In 2008 this college subsequently awarded him an honorary Sc.D. degree.
He has business interests in smartphone apps, cryptocurrency, yoga, and all-natural antibiotics. He resided a long time in Belize, but later in 2013, he returned to the United States. Now John McAfee lives with Janice Dyson his wife in Lexington.
Before McAfee Associates
Before founding McAfee associates John McAfee worked as a programmer at NASA’s Institute for Space Studies in New York City from 1968 to 1970. After that, he went to Univac as a software designer, later in Xerox as an operating system architect and In 1978 he joined as a software consultant in Computer Sciences Corporation. From 1980 to 1982 He worked in a consulting firm for Booz Allen Hamilton.
At McAfee Associates
In 1987 John McAfee founded McAfee Associates computer anti-virus company which create the first commercial antivirus software . After two years McAfee Associates went public, McAfee sold his remaining share in the company.
In 1997 he formed Network Associates as a merger of McAfee Associates and Network General. Later The Network Associates company was renamed as McAfee Inc. In August 2010, Intel bought McAfee and maintaining it as the separate branding, till January 2014, then Intel announced that McAfee-related products will be called Intel Security. McAfee was happy at the name change and he expressed his everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing him from it.
After McAfee Associates
After McAfee Associate, John McAfee found many Other business ventures include Tribal Voice, which developed one of the first instant messaging programs, PowWow. In 2000, he invested in and joined the board of directors of Zone Labs, who were the makers of firewall software, In August 2009 John McAfee’s personal fortune had declined to $4 million from that of $100 million because of the global financial crisis.
In February 2010, he started the company QuorumEx, which aimed to produce commercial all-natural antibiotics based on anti-quorum sensing technology. In 2013, John McAfee started a new company Future Tense Central, aimed the produce a secure computer network device named the D-Central. By 2016 it was also serving as an incubator.
In 2014 February, John McAfee announced an application for smartphones called, Cognizant to displays information about the permissions of other installed applications. In April 2014, it was renamed DCentral 1 and released a free android version of it on Google Play.
At the DEFCON conference in Las Vegas, Nevada in August 2014, he warned Americans not to use smartphones, suggesting apps are used to spy on clueless consumers who do not read privacy user agreements. In January 2016, he became the chief evangelist for a security startup Everykey.
In February 2016, John McAfee received media attention by publicly volunteering to decrypt the iPhone used by the San Bernardino shooters, avoiding the need for Apple to build a backdoor. McAfee later admitted that his claims of how simple cracking the phone were a publicity stunt, though he still claimed he could pull it off.
In May 2016, John McAfee was appointed as the chief executive chairman and CEO of MGT Capital Investments, a technology holding company. The company has itself plans to rename itself John McAfee Global Technologies, although this plan was abandoned due to a dispute with Intel over rights to the “McAfee” name. McAfee changed MGT’s focus from social gaming to cybersecurity, stating in an interview that “anti-virus software is dead, it no longer works,”
Soon after joining MGT, John McAfee claimed that he and his team had exploited a flaw in the Android operating system that allowed him to read encrypted messages from WhatsApp. Gizmodo investigated these claims and reported that McAfee had sent reporters malware-infected phones to make this hack work. McAfee replayed to these accusations that the phones had malware on them. How that malware got there, which he will release after speaking with Google. Which involves a serious problem in the Android architecture.”
John McAfee also moved MGT into mining of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, saying that it was intended both to make money for the company and to increase MGT’s expertise in dealing with blockchains, which he thought was important for cybersecurity. He has an extreme interest in bitcoin, so he writes on Twitter in July 2017, predicted that the price of one bitcoin would jump to $500,000 within three years. In November 2017, he increased his prediction to $1 million.
In August 2017, John McAfee stepped down as CEO, instead of serving as MGT’s “chief cybersecurity visionary.” In January 2018 he left the company altogether. Both sides stated that the decision was amicable, with McAfee saying that he wanted to spend all of his time on cryptocurrencies, while the company stated that they were getting pressured by potential investors to disassociate themselves from McAfee.
On August 13, 2018, McAfee became the CEO with Luxcore, a cryptocurrency company focused on enterprise solutions.
John McAfee’s politics
John McAfee himself called a libertarian, who advocates the decriminalization of cannabis, an end to the war on drugs, non-interventionism in foreign policy, a free-market economy that does not redistribute wealth, he supports free trade and abolishing the Transportation Security Administration.
McAfee advocates for increased cyber awareness and more action against the threat of cyberwarfare. He plans to even contest in the upcoming presidential election as a candidate from liberation party or form his own party.
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