Retrospect
Retrospect
The Rise and Fall of John McAfee | Retrospect Ep.232
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In this week’s episode we discussed the life of John McAfee, the brilliant yet controversial tech pioneer behind the world’s first commercial antivirus software. From his rise in Silicon Valley to his brushes with the law, wild adventures, and cryptic final days, we unpack the story of a man who blurred the lines between genius, paranoia, and infamy.
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Keywords
John McAfee, antivirus software, crypto evangelist, suicide, extradition, Belize, paranoia, drug use, financial crisis, libertarian politics, cyber party, market manipulation, SEC charges, conspiracy theories, digital world.
Speakers
Jason (50%), Ian (31%), Stoney (20%)
Jason
John McAfee didn't just build antivirus software. He helped create the digital world's immune system, and then he became something else, entirely different, a millionaire turned fugitive, a tech pioneer turned crypto evangelist, a man who claimed powerful people wanted him silenced, a 2020 US. Prosecutors accused him of hiding over 20 million in income tied to crypto deals and promotions. He was arrested in Spain, facing up to 30 years in prison nine months later, June. 23 2021 just hours after a court approved his extradition, John McAfee was found dead in his prison cell. Official ruling suicide, but before his death, two years earlier, he warned by suicide myself, I didn't that single line turned his death into a global question mark. Was it desperation? Was it fear of prison, or did a man who lived on the edge simply script his own final mystery. Because here's the truth. Because John McAfee didn't just build software. He built a persona that made truth harder to separate from performance, and in the end, that might be the most dangerous kind of legacy there is. You welcome to the
Ian
retrospect podcast, a show of people coming together from different walks of life and discuss a topic from the generations perspective. My name is Ian, and as always, I'm joined by Stoney,
Stoney
hello
Ian
and Jason,
Jason
hello everyone.
Ian
How's it going?
Jason
Oh, doing pretty good. Yeah. I feel like I'm finally kind of getting out of the funk that I had been in with my coronavirus 43 or whatever it was called sickness.
Ian
So I agree. I'm on the I think I'm on the tail end of whatever I had as well. So I
Jason
was able to go out and run today. So it's a beautiful day today. Was able to get out run today at lunch and got my five miles in. So feel pretty good, even though I feel like I've kind of lost a step.
Stoney
How long does it take you to run five miles?
Jason
About bro, right now, I think it's around 53 minutes. Wow, okay, normally it would be, normally it would be, I don't know, sometimes I think the fastest I've run it somewhere around 45 Yeah, but I mean, I'm not really pushing it. I've been having hamstring issues. Okay? So I find that if I take my stride, gets a little too, too wide. Yeah, I start having problems. And I think it's tied to my lower back, you know, my I've got injuries there from just working out over the years. Yeah, but, but I know the lie I ran Tuesday, and then, you know, today's, you know, Thursday. So I usually try to run twice. So I run five miles up, yeah, a pop time ago. Now, my sister has surprised me and said she wants to run a half marathon. Okay, so I told her, she asked me, Would you run with me? And we just said, Well, absolutely. So told us, we'll go ahead and get started running. Yeah, you know. And so I think that race will be in January. So next January, wow,
Stoney
already a runner. Or did she just wake up one day and
Jason
she always, she was always, you know, she'd work out a little bit. Yeah, she'd work on the gym, or she did Pilates, or exactly some of the stuff she was doing, but she never really a runner, right? I mean, I didn't really get into running until my to my 40s, so I'm kind of late to that, to that world, but so we're gonna, you know, I'll probably start to, you know, we'll kind of keep it. I'll stay around five, yeah, especially we're starting to get, get into the hot months, Oh, yeah. And then when it starts cooling down again, I'll start trying to push it to, if I can get to, you know, get to eight, nine miles and
Ian
can do it. How many miles is a half marathon? 13.1 Okay,
Jason
yeah, cuz I ran the full. Yeah, right. 26.2 okay, that took me five hours to do. I forgot about that. Yeah. Did that last year. Yeah, and, but, yeah, I've done a number of halves. I can usually. I don't know if I can do that like right now, but right I can usually do a half and about two hours. That's usually kind of my my goal, two hours, sometimes two hour 10. Just depends on, you know, how I feel. Yeah, and if I'm not having any leg problems and knees or ankles. Or everything else. But so I'm excited about that. So excited for my sister to to join me on a on a run like that. Yeah, but she told me the other day, she goes, Jason, I'm really enjoying retirement. I went, Yeah. Retirements good. She goes, I can just kind of do what I want to do on it. Yeah, I know it's nice, ain't it? Yeah? So, yeah, she's a, she's a, she's doing fine. So, so that's kind of the kind of thing we're doing right now. So hopefully I can, my body will cooperate. I can, because I haven't, you know, I haven't run that far since last year. I mean, I haven't done anything more than about five miles since, okay, March of 2025, wow. So it's gonna take a little bit to kind of get back to at least that, because a half, half marathon is actually more physical, really? Yeah, a full marathon is more mental.
Ian
I've heard, I heard a full
Jason
marathon can be it can Yeah, it starts playing with you after a while mentally. It's like, I'm still running. It's like, three, four hours later, and you're still running. It's like, Now, unless you're one of these, like, super duper type people who really are that can knock these. I mean, I know people can do full marathons and, you know, three and a half, four hours easy, but, you know, not me, not me. I'm not, I'm not that kind of runner, yeah. So just it's kind of late to try to do that if I was in my if I was your age, yeah, oh yeah. Then Absolutely, but not at my age. Now, it's little too hard on the body. Even interesting. Doctor keeps telling me, you need to stop doing all that. Jade's gonna need new knees, really, 60 years old. I'm like, well,
Ian
your doctor is trying to tell you to convince you to stop running. Yeah, interesting. They need to do
Jason
something else, like go swim, or no, do low impact, because just that pound in the concrete, yeah? So that's why I just try to limit it to like twice a week. You know, some people run like every like every day and that I can't do that, but twice a week's Max, yeah, for me. So yeah, doing well, though. So just kind of just,
Ian
it's been pretty chill here. Nothing too crazy has happened. It's been a pretty fun week. Weather has been really nice. Weather has really been nice.
Jason
I don't know when we're gonna have another rain. I need to get out and do my yard. I want to do weed and feed, yeah, but I don't want to put all that out until I know it's going to be raining, yep, so I sure don't want to put the sprinkler out there. I just just to me, you just don't really get the coverage.
Ian
Yeah, there may be some rain at the top of this coming week as of the as a recording. So potentially there could be some rain, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, potentially.
Jason
So okay, well, that's neat something.
Ian
So we're kind of right now in a dry period. Well, if you're listening to this on its release, maybe it's raining right now.
Jason
Who knows? Yeah, no kidding, yeah, when this drops, it might be raining.
Ian
All right, so what we got for today?
Jason
Well, talking about John
Stoney
McAfee, yeah, my first question is, is there any records of Hillary Clinton visiting him in Spain? Does death by suicide? Sounds awful familiar, doesn't it?
Ian
It's a calling card, I think at this point, right?
Stoney
I think so. Yeah. Is there any records?
Jason
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean it. I mean this, John McAfee. You know, it's so funny. I remember this. Of course, everybody remember. Every computer
Stoney
knows who John
Jason
McAfee is. I mean, oh, yeah, we all remember seeing that box on the store about it
Ian
wasn't McAfee. Was Norton. Norton, that was the other one. Yeah, those are the big one.
Jason
But, I mean, it's, I mean, he's kind of the godfather of just that whole thing. And I
Stoney
think in 87 he started his stuff. I mean, computers really were coming out. And, oh yeah, 85 and 84 ish, where people really started getting them, but then all of a sudden, oh yeah, they were starting to get viruses, too. And right, he was, he was a pioneer.
Jason
Yes, he was, but yeah, he ended up, you know, the guy just ended up being a, think it was a billionaire, yeah. And then the guy just kind of just went off the deep end a little bit. I, I don't want to be too critical a guy, because maybe it was some legitimate,
Stoney
I don't know if he was a billionaire, because he had actually left the company before it sold to Intel, and Intel bought it for 7.7 billion. Billion dollars, but he was already gone at that point. So I don't, I don't know if he was a bill. He's, I'm sure he had plenty of money, because he was also one of the things he was wanting to in America. He was wanted in America for questioning, for some crypto stuff, but they were only talking a couple of million dollars, you know, maybe $20 million that he got from fraudulently pushing crypto at the time or something. So it wasn't an exorbitant amount of money, but he had enough to move around.
Jason
Yeah, he was, he was one of the very earliest proponents of crypto as a way of avoiding centralized power, you know, trying to skirt US debt. You know the finance Federal Reserve and the US dollar, and you know the restrictions that. But you know he was accused of misleading investors, and it was like 2025, $30 million that, you know, the federal authorities were after him for, for, you know, not, you know, not reporting that, or, you know, did some, some wrongdoings or something to that effect. And he fought extradition for a long time.
Ian
I think, from what I'm able to look up here is, I think that he he his net worth was at 100 million at a certain point, and then that's when he kind of went off the deep end. But they're saying that if he would have stuck it out for a little while longer, it would have been worth potentially over a billion, because I think that the company now was worth like 14 billion.
Jason
Oh, absolutely so if he would have been kind of a, like a normal, yeah, you know, kind of following the path of all some of these other tech people. I mean, he definitely would have been, probably a Steve Jobs or, you know, those kind of people, you know, as far as money wise, but,
Stoney
but we also have, at the time, we had three parties, Democrat, Libertarian and Republican. He helped found the cyber party and actually run for president, starting in the cyber party, but then moving to the libertarian because they just couldn't get enough support. But I thought that would have been fascinating to have a fourth party in there that kind of but it never really took off. But he actually ran for president, too.
Jason
Yeah, he did. I think it was in 2016
Stoney
I think that was right,
Jason
yeah, which I just don't remember his name, because that was the first time Trump was on the ballot. And I just, I'm just trying to remember that election, because it was so Hillary Clinton and Donald
Stoney
Trump, and that's why no one
Jason
heard of it, you know? It just shows you that I was listening to a podcast his wife was talking about that, you know, she basically discounted that he killed himself, that when they went in there and found him hanging with some shoe strings on them, when how they treated him. Basically, they didn't remove the they didn't remove the they didn't clear his airway. You know, to me, it's kind of weird, because that's like, the first thing you do is you clear the airway of someone that's trying. They didn't do that so, and then they put him back in his cell. Yeah, they didn't try to bring him to the hospital and put him back in his cell, so he was alive when they found him, at least, according to her, he was not dead in his cell. Interesting. So, yeah, it was a but, you know, the wife fought that, but he's had an appeals court, you know, basically ruled said, no, they his death was suicide. So I don't know. I mean, you claim that, and,
Stoney
oh, they also claim that Epstein committed suicide too, and he's living large in Argentina right now. Maybe him and John are hanging out together, yeah?
Jason
Maybe they are, yeah. Matter of fact, they say, after his death, that quote that I mentioned in my intro went kind of viral, and it basically said, like, online hashtags, like, you know, the number sign, McAfee didn't kill himself exploded. Yeah, so, yeah, it was a immediately that that's, that's just, that's just, what I call that's, that's just food for the conspiracy people to start kicking in and eating on that so, and there's a lot
Stoney
of lot of people, you know, if he did commit suicide, why would he do that. Well, this is a true free spirit. This this guy did and went everywhere he could. And then, you know, in October of 2020, until he committed suicide in June 23 to 21 he was in, you know, Spain's not known for their, you know, Taj Mahal prisons. And he may have saw some handwriting on the wall. I don't know where I feel about this one, though. I know he did ruffle enough feathers, because he said he had a kill switch. And this he said, and other people believe that it was an Epstein level type situation with his kill switch, and if something happened to him, all of this stuff would be released. And so you got to wonder maybe Hillary Clinton did pay him a visit, or, you know, because what did this guy know?
Ian
Oh, probably a lot.
Jason
Well, he was living in, I think, in Belize, and he,
Stoney
yeah, compound in Belize.
Jason
Supposedly he knew all about some of the high ups in the Belize government, about how, you know, the government is run by basically the mafia for all intents and purposes, and it's nothing but human trafficking and drugs and stuff like that. So Supposedly he had dirt on them. And I know they approached him about some things, and he said, basically, you know, go screw yourselves and end up his dogs end up getting poisoned. And they came back and offered him another deal, and he basically told him again and no uncertain terms, Go screw yourself again and and this, things went kind of downhill after that.
Stoney
So well he and even in Belize, he was having some problems. He was questioning his neighbor's death. Gregory falls death. You know what happened there? You know, his dogs got poisoned. The neighbor gets killed. Yeah, you know, there's a lot going on around this cat. Well, also,
Ian
once you, you know, if you're knowledgeable enough in the tech space, and you create antivirus, and you, you know, know how to get in certain places, and you know at a certain point, I think you, you know too much, or you or you can get in somewhere that you probably shouldn't kind of stuff potentially, so
Jason
you become a threat, yeah, you become a threat liability. I mean, look, the reality is he, I mean, the US government was asking for failing to file taxes for multiple years, and when you owe that kind of money, yeah, you're gonna attract the attention. I mean, you owing 20, $25 million in taxes. That's crazy. The IRS is gonna be kind of like on you, like white on rice. I mean, it's just what it is. And he, you know, he spent years running away, you know, living in Europe, South America, all over the place, trying to avoid that. So, you know, he's, it's kind of an eccentric character.
Stoney
And you also have to wonder why people thought of it so much. You know this, this guy was a genius founder. He was kind of like another little Elon Musk and all these other people. He hated the government. He did. He did. He hated the government and and in all of this showmanship, he kind of self created this myth about who he was people like that, especially in today's society, with all of the social media and all of the Instagram these people are creating their own myths about themselves. Well, that's he learned. He did that. He was one of the originals to do this, yeah, and I mean, he he did a lot. He was a legitimate pioneer in a number of things, social media being one
Jason
of them. Yeah, so the SEC accused him of misleading investors and secretly getting paid for endorsements. Okay? So, you know, I mean, I think his his arguments against the government and kind of being one of being one of these free spirits, and wanting to do what he wants to do, and I need to be free of the dollar and the constraints of the financial system as it exists now, right? But, you know, his, these kind of allegations kind of take away a bit of his, you know, if he basically was just had no none of these issues. And he was just one of these people of his stature saying, you know, all this financial system is all rigged. It's all corrupt. It's designed up to basically keep people in bondage. I think if it was just that, I think he would have a very much a welcoming audience, because there's a lot of people believe that now believe it today. I mean that part of the, I mean a lot of the crypto stuff was pushed by Trump, and when in his election, a lot of the crypto people ended up voting for Donald Trump, and I still think that the the little secret digital currency law that got slipped in there that seems to have now disappeared off the public radar, yeah, I think is going to come back and bite us. But, yeah, I think I think he's an. Early profit of the what, I think the fears of what's, what's happening right now, and I think it's just we're kind of in a very tenuous place right now, right interesting.
Stoney
So, I mean, you got to think about it. How does he go from, you know, being this digital pioneer to an international fugitive like that. I mean, yeah, what is this guy? Yeah. I mean,
Jason
what's unusual is just how fast he kind of flipped like this. I mean, it's like something happened to him. There's some videos. I mean, you can look it up on YouTube, and his last
Stoney
interview, oh, he's just,
Jason
he's out there. He's out okay,
Stoney
more so than me, he's
Jason
out there with stuff. I mean, I think it was one thing I saw he's there with, like, cast drugs and just, he's just kind of okay, living the kind of life that
Ian
I see. I was thinking it was more so, like, a paranoia thing that, like, I didn't see what you're talking about, but, like, but I think I now see that there's probably drugs attention, right?
Stoney
He loved the attention, but the drugs also bring in a certain paranoia, right? Mixed with that attention,
Jason
you know, yeah, I was, I was watching a deal where his wife was was given an interview. I think her wife, or she was once a prostitute when she met, when they met, and I recall her, you know, when they sat down together. Yeah, she didn't know who he was, and he was, like, taken aback, but you don't know who I am. I'm John McAfee, you know. And he kind of had this persona, like everybody should know him. He was, I see and but, yeah, she kind of was, was sharing her, her first experience with him when she wanted to, you know, he said, we'll just have coffee with me and sitting down talking, of course, being what she was, she's got to get that out in the open first, because look, what do you want? This is what I do, blah, blah, blah. And they spend, you know, a good bit of the day together just sitting down drinking coffee and just kind of hanging out. And then he asked, ask her to go back up to her to his room. And she says she was, he was standing at the edge of the bed and kind of going rocking up and down on his toes, okay? And, and it's like she goes, you know, okay, do you want to do the whatever? Yeah, right. He goes, No, do you want to? She goes, All I want is just you cuddle with me. Okay, so that's what they did.
Ian
Yeah, they cuddled Interesting, yeah,
Jason
he's definitely a different type of guy, yeah, in that regard. And so, yeah, I found that that interesting. But there's a lot of good information right now, just, of course, now his wife is has still maintained that, yeah, he didn't kill himself, that he was murdered.
Ian
And, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. So when did he start to go off of the deep end a little bit. Was that in like, the past couple years, or was that, like, has it been something that's happened?
Jason
I think it started happening in the in the in the early 2000s
Stoney
Okay, I think it was a little bit before that. That's one of the reasons he left the company in 94 because he was realizing he doesn't have as much control over it, I see, and he's some of the things he saw, and when he left, and then all of a sudden, it gets sold for almost $8 billion and I think that's when he started tanking. But the, you know, maybe the drugs and alcohol and things like that in the 2000s really started taking off from there. But it was, um, man, yeah, it was
Jason
common, yeah. Supposedly, the theories of what you know, what's out there right now, of what he knew, he basically knew crypto, market manipulation techniques, insider trading, they all do, is that where
Ian
the controversy comes in, because there's a
Jason
bunch of crypto stuff, yeah, supposedly, that's a lot of it. It's about him misleading some people, I see earning money from that. And that's, I think, what eventually led the fine the federal authorities to, you know, kind of start paying attention this guy and started coming after him. So you know, whether it was all true or not, you know, but I'm
Stoney
sorry he they were after him for promoting something and not telling people that he was getting money to promote it. I mean, real, that's a reach number one.
Ian
There's a bit. In recent history, there's a big thing on there's a, I don't know if it's a law, but there's a big thing that has transitioned in the like creator space, like with YouTube, that, like, you have to disclose you're getting paid for this. If you don't, you could get in trouble for so
Stoney
then don't politicians need to do that with the lobbyists? Now I'm getting paid underground money because I'm promoting this.
Ian
Yes, I hate to say it, but that's different. No, but come on. But again, it's different, right? But if I'm getting paid by a brand to say something, again, that was where that's that's where it gets to be. They want to, at least in the in the in the space of, I don't know about John McAfee specifically, but in like, the in the YouTube space, like they want that transparency, because they don't want people to feel like there was a time when that wasn't the case, and it felt right, and it was muddy, where people are getting benefits from something that you know kind of kind of feels a bit scummy. I don't know why they did that, but I'm not sure if that also plays into that. Yeah, you know maybe that he
Jason
his his wife basically said before he died, she goes, she they talk sure before for his death. And she goes, he sounded hopeful. He was focused on continuing his legal fight, he was determined to win his case, and says so there was absolutely no warning signs of his death. So that's why she holds that now. She doesn't believe that her John and he was 75 his death, that he did this on his own,
Ian
you know, so why? What was he in a prison in Spain for for
Jason
the they follow the cryptos to cryptos.
Stoney
Okay, he was arrested there. They were waiting for a court to approve the extradition to America, which you weren't going to extradite him. Why did they even arrest?
Ian
Well, they wouldn't, at least say they have them, I guess, yes. Interesting. Okay, yeah, so, I mean,
Jason
it's, you know, as I said, the appeal court basically just ruled that the cases he died about suicide.
Stoney
So and he didn't just say if, if I, if you hear, I committed suicide, I was whacked. He repeatedly said that. That was like me. About every four shows, I say, if I'm if I commit suicide, you know, he did it repeatedly. He wasn't just said it one time. And, you know, he even had a tattoo, I think, on him that said whacked, really?
Ian
Yeah, I think so you have a calling card where you say that every time you got to say something controversial that could potentially get you killed, right?
Stoney
He claimed to have 31 terabytes of incriminating data. 31 terabytes
Ian
is ridiculous. That is in
Jason
his that's a lot of data. Has a lot of data.
Stoney
Kill Switch, wow, yeah.
Jason
But none of that materialized. No, of course.
Ian
Of course not, because you could better believe that, that when, after they probably killed him, they took, they took all his stuff and destroyed all of it.
Stoney
Well, a kill switch is not something you can get to. A kill switch is something when you Well, someone somewhere, something some if about.
Ian
But all I'm saying is that I wouldn't be surprised if you know they probably killed him because they had his his data, they had his stuff all locked down. They're like, Oh, no, we don't need him anymore, right? We'll keep him alive because he has the kill switch on us. But then the second we have his, his 30 something terabytes of stuff, we're like, No, I don't need irreliability.
Jason
I think he probably, he probably knew some stuff on the Belize government, probably, so, you know, I'm sure he did somebody with that sort of resources, and yeah, to those countries like that. I mean, I wonder if he basically says, during his time in Belize, and which would have been the early 2010s Okay, multiple locals and Associates described him as highly paranoid. He was surrounded by armed guards and obsessed with security and surveillance. Yep, he said it was also tied to the 2012 death of his neighbor,
Ian
Gregory fall. Yeah, we talked about
Jason
that a second ago. So
Ian
I wonder, Oh, man, there's like a maybe it's Pandora's Box. Is the analogy I'm thinking of, there's like, a level of knowledge of, like, once you have too much of the knowledge, you can't go back. I met somebody that was like this, that was very good at cyber security, that was very knowledgeable in the Computer Space, and he was very paranoid. And, I mean, he was always looking over his shoulder, because, again, like, he also, he got in, I wouldn't say he got into some bad spaces, but I think he knew how to and I think he dabbled around. I don't think he was a criminal or did anything wrong, but like, I just think he, like, he just knew a little too much, or, like, I said, peered behind the curtain a little too much, and was like it was something that maybe it was a personality thing, maybe it was a mental thing. I wasn't aware. Aware of some sort of thing he had that was not diagnosed or whatever. But it kind of sounds very similar if he's on drugs.
Jason
Yeah, you know, one of the, the one of the side effects I have found with people I've known, unfortunately, that, have you know, done that? Yeah, is paranoid.
Stoney
That's what I said earlier. That's one of the things that comes with drug use, is it's not because of the drug, it's because you're using the drug, yeah? And sometimes the drug, right? And when they mix in there, you're always looking
Ian
what I was saying earlier was I was unaware that he had, like, a drug, like, a substance abuse problem. So I thought he was paranoid just because of like, all the stuff he was doing. But then I was like, oh, but then you add in, I think part of substances. I think it doesn't both, yeah, it probably doesn't help the mental state with all that stuff. I think
Stoney
he saw some stuff, yeah, and I think he was because bellies isn't that easy on drugs. Spain's not easy on drugs. America is the only country that's really easy on drugs.
Ian
Man, that's crazy. Yeah,
Jason
he engaged in a lot of what they call pump and dump schemes. Yeah, yeah.
Ian
You know, that's a big that's a big thing now, especially with all these different like, stupid nonsense coins that pop up and,
Jason
yeah, promoted coins after being secretly paid, and that's what led the US Securities Exchange Commission to charge him with those with those crimes. So I think he was a, you know, I think, you know, two things can be true at the same time. Yeah. He was a visionary, yeah. I think there's probably some truth to what he said regarding, you know, the financial market and the constraints and what you can and can't do. And he was just saying, you know, this is systems, not right. And we got to, you know, it's keeping people in bondage, and this is a way of doing it. But same time, he didn't necessarily, his actions initially matched his rhetoric, right, you know, so, you know,
Stoney
yeah, but a lot of his rhetoric has aged pretty well.
Jason
Well, you know, a lot of people liking him to Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, that's all you've been hearing.
Stoney
A lot of the stuff he said, is kind of, you know, being proven right now, yeah, lot of his fears, a lot of the surveillance stuff he was trying to tell people back from his McAfee days, yeah, a lot of his stuff is aged well,
Jason
yeah, Yeah. He's a just real, super smart guy who had a lot of issues. I don't know much about his childhood. Maybe somebody can Google that if there's anything regarding what was his life growing up? What sort of House did he come from? And stuff like that. I don't, I don't, I didn't find anything. I didn't really go that angle. But that would probably be interesting to see there's anything on his childhood and, you know, yeah, be very interesting. What his parents were like? Did He have brothers and sisters? You know, be very curious, what they thought of him,
Ian
oh, right here, right at the top, it says that he had a traumatic childhood. There it is characterized by an abusive, alcoholic American father and a British mother raised in Salem, Virginia. He endured regular violence until his father died by suicide when he was 15. This turbulent upbringing led him to struggle with addiction later in his life, apparently,
Stoney
well, an abusive father and a British mother, the cat didn't stand a chance. Oh, Miranda's gonna kill me for that one. I did not commit suicide.
Jason
I'm just curious about, you know, would his brothers, and you know, his siblings, be very curious, if they've Yeah, imagine anything.
Ian
Despite his hardship, he grew up to be a brilliant math student and was an early entrepreneur, selling magazines door to door to earn money. He attended, later attended college, where he began to follow in his father's footsteps with heavy drinking, apparently.
Jason
So yep, there it is. Yeah, wow. Sins of the Father sometimes carry on to the Son, and especially if the if there's a suicide, for the parents commit suicide, it's sometimes it does follow with kids that one or more of them will do that, I don't know, but yeah, I'd be very interesting. What his any interviews with his siblings regarding him,
Ian
I don't I'm not seeing readily if he had any siblings or not. But that may just be because I'm not typing things into Google correctly, but he may have been. He had one child, he had a couple of spouses, but I don't think he had any siblings, though. So anyways, but
Jason
yeah, he was born in the UK. Yeah, he was born in the UK a British mother.
Stoney
So was he a naturalized citizen then? Or it says
Ian
that he primarily was raised in Salem, Virginia, so I'm not
Jason
sure if they were. They probably moved, you know, but I mean, they're just saying he was born in the UK. It says, you know, basically, he really didn't publicly spotlight family members. So obviously, I don't know what kind of relation he had with them. I don't know if they were close. If a lot of times in a dysfunctional family like that, sometimes it's, you know, you know, find that, or they just kind of all were probably looking to all get out and get out on their own, and they just live their own lives. And, you know, who knows? But, you know, I would think if I would want to know about what my brother would be doing.
Stoney
You know, I'm looking here. It doesn't say there's any clearly documented sources saying he had any brothers?
Ian
That's right, that's what I had found, too. So I was like, I wasn't sure if I was looking at the right person or not, but
Jason
yeah, he kept his his family life very obscure.
Stoney
So interesting. He was an interesting fellow. Yeah, that's interesting.
Ian
I'm also looking a little bit in this Gregory Fowle person that we can Yeah, referring to
Jason
Yeah. They wanted to question him on that, but
Ian
yeah, he
Jason
was never charged. Yeah, never charged.
Stoney
They just wanted to question Person of Interest.
Ian
It says that the Prime Minister calls him extremely paranoid, even bonkers.
Jason
Yeah, well, I can see, I can see why. I
Ian
mean, that's interesting. He
Jason
had more security than the actual president, you know. So, wow, you know. It's like, you know, what do you what do you think? You know? I guess if you run around and you constantly think everybody's out to get me. You know, this paranoid delusion just sets in and becomes part of who you
Ian
are, yeah? But it also said, I think it says that he fled Belize rather than cooperate with some of the stuff, which is interesting to see, because that's also, I don't know that kind
Jason
of feels a bit, yeah. I mean, you would think I'm innocent. I'm gonna tell you, Look, I had nothing to do with this dude getting, you know, dying so, but him not wanting to talk about it. You also
Stoney
said he may have had some information on the bellys government, yeah, and so maybe he didn't want to get put into their prison there. And right? It would be safest somewhere else. And it wound up not being so. Hillary Clinton showed up. It says, in
Ian
December 2012 the magazine vice accidentally gave away McAfee's location at a Guatemalan resort when a photo was taken by one of the journalists. And then it said, while he was in Guatemala, like, apparently he was like, what does it say right here, experiencing, well, on the run, he that appeared publicly in Guatemala City, where he unsuccessfully, uh, sought police or a political asylum, apparently, anyway. So I guess during that whole situation, he flew off to Guatemala and ran away. So okay, that's kind of strange, but it's a mess. Yeah, that's that definitely is a that makes me feel a bit like, you know, like you said before, it probably has to do with the government and, you know, the mob. But when you're that
Stoney
paranoid, you don't trust anybody, right?
Jason
Well, yeah, you don't. I mean, I can understand that one to be put in a prison, potentially, yeah, and, of course, they can just then hold you there.
Ian
And, yeah, that's interesting. How many people so far have, have we talked about in this show that have, like, quote, unquote, died by suicide that seemingly is brought about by somebody else. I know we've talked about a handful of people. It's just interesting to see another one as well. You know,
Jason
he worked, actually, as a as a NASA contractor.
Ian
I read a little bit about that.
Jason
He worked at Lockheed Martin and Xerox. See, I think
Ian
at this point, I think my guy knew too much. I think he had dirt on everybody. Probably that's the problem.
Jason
Well, he founded McAfee associates in 1987 Yeah, and one of the first commercial antivirus softwares, and by the early 90s they were that was installed on millions. Oh yeah, of computers. And as I said, he sold his stake in 1994
Ian
so interesting. I just, I have a strong feeling that he probably had a lot of secret data on a
Stoney
lot of people. I think he probably did, yeah, yeah, because you're connected to everybody's computer. Oh, yeah. And for the virus to work, it has to be able to go, you see what I'm saying, yeah.
Ian
Well, especially those softwares, like, I'm like, respectfully, I don't like using them so much. Maybe back in the day, they were better, but like nowadays, Norton and McAfee are, like a virus of themselves. But you got to think about
Stoney
Norton had a five year jump. I mean, McAfee had a five year jump on Norton. Oh yeah, a five year jump. They didn't come out till like 91
Ian
or 92 but I'm just saying in a modern day, they do the very same thing where, like, they are a virus in and of themselves. Like they choke up your computer, and they run a bunch of stuff in the background, and they, I hardly defend your computer, not a way, at least from what I've seen. Personally, I could be wrong, but people love them, and a lot of times I think it's also it's out the box. It's easy to work with. But for me, I feel, I feel a bit nervous. Working like this is so invasive. Why are you right?
Jason
But after he cashed out of his company, he he was invested in yoga ventures, what? Yeah, aerial trekking, which is big, ultra light aircraft, like those little airplanes. And he lost a significant amount of wealth during the 2008 financial crisis. Okay? Took a big hit there. A lot of people did, yeah, he was very interested in libertarian politics, anti government ideology and personal experimentation, including heavy drug use, by his own admission. So yeah, he is a basically less CEO and more free agent in his in his deal, and then during the police years, he moved there, and 2010 he built the compound, and tons of guards, like we mentioned, lot of surveillance. He claimed he was researching antibiotics, supposedly, yeah, he was actually researching. That's another thing I was listening to on a podcast. He was trying to create an antiviral topical solution to help with like cuts and and stuff like that. And he was kind of giving it out to the natives. And I think that attracted some attention.
Ian
I just I found a little fun fact here, saying that in December of 2018 he tweeted that he had 47 genetic children. Oh, yeah, his third wife described him in a Father's Day message as Father of Many, loved by few.
Jason
Yes. Basically, had a harem. I think he just had had relations with all that alone would
Stoney
make you paranoid all kinds
Jason
of women. So I'm sure he was getting a lot of women pregnant. So oh my
Stoney
gosh, that reminds me of one of the greatest what was the show the clamp. It's the Beverly Hillbillies. Yeah, when the dad Jed clamp, it was, you know, they had oil. That's how they got rich. And they're talking to this Saudi prince. And somebody asked the Saudi prince, how many wives do you have? Yeah, the Saudi prince said, Well, I got 200 and something wives. And they're like, Oh my gosh. How do you do that? And they said, Mr. Clamp it. How do you feel about that? And he turned and looked at the report and said, well, makes you think if he's got 220 wives coming home, he's probably gonna find at least one of them in a good mood.
Ian
Oh man. Apparently also it says here that 2000 or sorry, yeah, 2016 article McAfee had been using the then legal drug Alpha PHP, which he imported from China, and which may have caused his paranoia. McAfee reportedly previously used the stimulant drug MDPV in the beginning of 2010 sounds
Stoney
like a lot of chemical Yeah, made drugs, synthetic drugs.
Ian
Member of an online drug discussion forum called blue light, apparently. So yeah, I think there's a like you said before. I think there's a lot of chemical stuff happening, and what you call it playing, sampling of these things that are stimulants and stuff like that that are not.
Stoney
And then you gotta think about, he probably didn't sleep a lot. When you're
Ian
paranoid, you don't sleep. Oh, man, that's and that's what. Had some sleep
Stoney
deprivation, dude, you'd
Ian
be surprised how much, how powerful sleep is, how good it is for the human body, and when you don't have it, how scary and how many things you're how how quickly your mind can play tricks on you. Oh yeah, it's crazy. I recently listened to a podcast talking about that, where they talked about, like, what's actually going on, like what we what we assumed, or what we thought about, what we thought sleep was doing and cleaning our brains of certain things, whereas it's actually more like sleep is cleaning out our gut in a certain way. And that's the thing that can actually kill you. Is like, by lack by not sleeping. It's not nearly your your brain getting flooded with chemicals. It's more so your, your your gut, in some way, being able, not being able, to process out certain toxins. Oh, anyways, it was, it was a cool show, but the more they were talking about it was like, it really three, four days, and you're dead without sleep. And I was like, Wait,
Stoney
what's killing me about this accident. Before the accident, I could sleep eight hours, yeah, yeah. And now I'm lucky to sleep two and a half to three hours a night. And it, I know, and it alone can make you paranoid. Oh, yeah, not sleeping, dreaming, yeah, just it's it's rough, it's crazy,
Ian
and it's a we
Jason
have to have sleep. Yeah? Is that is critical. Trust me, I know when I go a couple nights without it, just I know, yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. And matter of fact, I think I saw a study is, it's surprising the number of people who don't get enough sleep?
Ian
Yeah, I have to look at I'm not gonna I'm not gonna lie I I was in that camp of but it was more so by choice. I was working more, and I was like staying up a little bit later and doing things like that, and not getting enough sleep, waking up early and keeping that cycle going. So I was doing it to myself. I have a much better rhythm and routine now for
Stoney
my sleep, back in my protective service days I worked eight years, yeah, seven days a week, 18 hours a day. That's crazy. For eight years, yeah, non stop, yeah, and but now it's, you know, at least there you could get some sleep right now I'm not given any sleep, I just, I sit there, I look, I look, I, look, I look, I'm trying to calm down, and it just after a while, just takes toll on you.
Ian
Yeah, and I think also the podcast was talking about it as well. Is that it maybe not, it doesn't help out the same way that sleep does but, but I think it still does the same kind of thing is it just sitting there and not doing anything is still good for you, yes. So, like, is, like, even if you're not sleeping, it just laying down and, like, having a second to just not do anything does still help mentally and and it does have the same sort of benefit. So anyways, it's, I'll probably send it to you. It's a, it's really cool episode of the show. And it was, like, I said I said I was, I was thinking about it. I was thinking about, you know, my history and how I used to stay up for, you know, a couple days on end and do work. And when you were younger, it was one, well, yeah,
Stoney
but you're in your 30s. For me, it
Ian
is, I could, I could probably still do that now, but it's more so the fact of, like, I don't want, like, a long term issue to happen like I do. I I'm fortunate enough that, like, I don't have sleeping problems. And so like, instead of like, trying to, like, induce that by staying up or by whatever else, like, I it is good for me to try and take that time and like, and so I'm trying to be more intentional about like, okay, like, I could keep working, but it's also not healthy for you to keep doing that. Have a good balance. Have a moment where you can stop and and lay down and not do anything, and then sleep for, you know, whatever like.
Jason
So what time you normally go to bed?
Ian
Uh, 11 o'clock midnight, yeah. But I also don't have to be up super, super early. So I usually will wake up at seven or eight, yeah. And then I start my day that way. And so,
Jason
yeah, I mean, yeah, easily, right?
Ian
My main so I've noticed a rhythm with myself is, is if I can get somewhere between seven to eight hours, a lot of times, seven is probably good enough where I can wake up without an alarm. So if I, if I go to sleep, I can almost guarantee seven hours, and then I'm probably gonna wake up or around eight, depending on how tired I am. But, yeah, it's, it's interesting. I've done some metrics, and I've done some little things and some apps and, you know, tracking of things like that. So it's pretty fun. Like, I said it's more. So it's a health thing, of like, I It's, I wouldn't say it's more, so the fact that I'm getting older and I can't do that, it's just that I don't want to do that, because I don't I, you know, I'm generous enough to be healthy enough that I don't have to worry about that right now, but I know if I preemptively work on those kind of things, hopefully that will be a problem.
Stoney
We've said a bunch since we started doing this together, that we want a dream interpreter, and maybe we need a sleep, you know, a sleep doctor to come on the show too. Yeah. And that would be an interesting, interesting show. It is. It's really interesting the mechanics behind
Ian
sleeping and dreaming Exactly.
Jason
I'd love to get something on dreams, but I don't know who to get for that.
Ian
Yeah, that's a, that's a hard one. Yeah, yeah.
Jason
Well, I just real quick, yeah. I was looking at this about some of his claims with his his drug lab, or whatever he was trying to do. He was trying to new antibiotics targeting drug resistant bacteria. He was he was what he was trying to do, wow, yeah. He described it as cutting edge research. It could change medicine. And he set up a compound. It was small, had a team of young researchers and but the reality is the lab was described as as improvised, lacking proper scientific controls, no peer reviewed research, no published findings, no recognized medical breakthroughs, and some even said the operation was disorganized or non serious, and the staff was inexperienced and project like scientific credibility so and I think his claims of heavy drug use probably didn't Help either, because he's probably right, right tripping drugs, researching, he pseudoscience, pseudo science. Yeah, he's, yeah, he's just this dude. The more read about him, I just think he was a little crazy. Yeah, it
Ian
doesn't help that. Like, obviously, you, I don't know, man, I feel like there's, like, a level of wealth that people get to and they, like, go down a couple different paths, and none of them are really good. And I feel like
Jason
maybe, well, I mean, it doesn't look like he had much purpose after he cashed out. He I think Stoney rich, and he got up like $100 million yes. And, you know, $100 million back in that time. That's a lot of money. And so, you know, it's kind of like, what do you do with your life at that point, if you have no, if you don't have no desire to give me people that own that kind of money, generally, embark on some, generally, some, you know, either I'm gonna build a business or I'm right. I'm pursuing some altruistic goals. I'm trying to help humanity, or wherever the case may be, right? And it just seemed like he just kind of went down a path of, you know, of you know drugs. And then, of course, you know, it's women, you know women and everything else. And he just just kind of lost himself, you know, just, and then, of course, the drugs, and that contributes to his paranoia, and and then all of a sudden, you don't trust anybody, and you're locking yourself up in a compound, and you, you just kind of lose touch of the world. I mean, you just, you can't even function anymore, right, you know, in a traditional sense. I mean, so I don't think he would even been even possible for him to kind of, yeah, you know, operate normally.
Ian
He was an alcoholic before I need to get $100 million i
Jason
That's one of those hate to say it. This probably is childhood, yeah. You know, I said sometimes we all hear about childhoods where people have these, you know, terrible childhoods. Oh, yeah, but yet, turn out to be great human beings and but no problems. And you got others that it seems like they're trapped, and you sound like it's definitely trapped.
Stoney
I mean, he just look at he was a very addictive person, alcohol, drugs. Think about this. You know, if he had that many concubines and children, he was addicted to sex, yep. And then he loved the spotlight. He was addicted to. He was one of the early addicted people to
Jason
the stage right, if social media was around, would have been around
Stoney
MySpace, right? And Twitter. He was on both of those Well, you know, he was the earth. He was the pioneer for all of these neurological problems. As far as being addicted to likes and shares and all of this stuff, he was just ahead of
Jason
his time. Yeah, I saw that that Facebook and Instagram got a $3 million verdict thrown out on Oh, yeah. I heard about that. Yeah, that supposedly anybody claimed that they were addicted, and Mark said it made them do something or something. A lot. Have to
Ian
look at it. Did you hear it? Would you hear what Mark Zuckerberg said in reference to like children being influenced by the platform or whatever is the like? He said, like the harming of children was. Was inevitable, like, because of, like, the and I think he's, he said it in such a way, I'm paraphrasing, because I watched a video about this, like, literally, earlier today. It was one video about it, but it was, it said that basically, he had said, like, it was inevitable because of all the stuff that's on the platform, and because of how the platform is structured, it was inevitable for it.
Jason
Yeah, I gotta get the algorithm where you gonna want to go and but it
Ian
was just the fact, like, I think, I think you said that in like a court setting where there's like, oh, so, like, you're basically saying harming children. It's an inevitability. It's like, wait, what you just say?
Jason
Are we creating an environment that's not natural, that you know you're you're meant to interact with other human beings, and you're supposed to go outside and breathe the air and get in the sunlight. And, yeah, I think people that just lock themselves up and all they do is Doom scroll all day long. And they got some people that do that, yeah? And, I mean, they just, they just, I mean, you could, I can almost spot them out, you know, it's like, yeah, you Doom scrolling too much, you know, you got to get out in the world
Stoney
a little bit like, you know, Miranda and I talk, we have said this before on the show. We go out to eat see a family of five sitting at the table, everybody in the kids, kids sitting on their phone.
Jason
Oh, that's, I Why? Why? I mean, I'd say, I mean, look at the at my at my wedding, I remember some of the young people, guess what they were doing? Oh yeah, constantly sitting at a table, just staring at their phones, and they're not interacting with anybody. And it's like, okay,
Ian
I found it. I found it. It says in in taped dispositions played during the March of this year, trial in New Mexico. Mark Zuckerberg argued that, or someone was arguing that it harms children such as sexual exploitation and mental health issues, and he commented, saying that it is an inevitable byproduct of operating platforms with billions of users. And so they were like, so you're saying that like,
Stoney
well, right there should be passed that you can't be on any platform until you're 21 years old, right there, because they're saying it's more addictive and more exploitive than alcohol and drugs.
Jason
I don't know how you would. I don't know how you would.
Ian
It says that Zuckerberg states that when serving billions of people, a small percentage will include criminals, making it impossible to guarantee a perfect or perfectly safe platform. Wow.
Stoney
But you see our leaders, don't know how to write laws. Virginia just passed a scathing hammer against the Second Amendment. I saw that. Did you? How did they word it? You must be 21 years old to be in possession of a gun or accompanied by an adult. You have to be eight. You're considered an adult at 18 in Virginia. Yeah. Okay, hello. Does that? Does that? Does that kind of cause some
Jason
confusion there? Be honest, I just kind of wish they would just simply go back to the way it was before the Vietnam era, and just make 21 the age of majority?
Ian
Yeah, I really the last thing I'll say about this right here is he says, While apologizing to the families and other forums during the trial, Zuckerberg pushed back against the claims that meta is specifically designed, has specifically designed as platforms to addict children, or that it's targeted as young users, which is interesting. So he says all that, and then, of course, he's like, but it's not specifically designed for that. It's just a byproduct of it, which I think is, you know, him trying to like, Okay, well, but it's still reality. It's still right there. Yeah. Anyways, so Yeah,
Stoney
John McAfee was a pioneer,
Ian
and then here we are now, exactly, and who knows he got himself, would you say whacked, whacked in the process?
Jason
Possibly, yeah. So he's he, as I'm saying, I think he's a, I think he's a victim of about childhood, and unfortunately, instead of, you know, trying to better himself and try to become a productive citizen, he decided to go down the path of paranoia
Stoney
and drugs. He started off trying to better himself and better the world with a great product to protect people from exactly and
Jason
yes, I'm saying if he would have just stayed on that path. I mean, you can imagine what the guy could be worth now, and probably would be in a lot better, better.
Ian
I think this just goes to show too, is like you got to be careful with substances, not only just like the hard ones, like he did, like psychotics, or whatever it was, or the i. Designer drugs he was taken. But, like, even down to, like, alcoholism is, like, that, all that stuff is, like, it can get to a scary, like, get to a slippery slope where, like, you can, this guy had a whole lot and that potentially, is what brought him down. Is, you know, this kind of the substances, which is kind of scary, and probably other things as well, but you know, that's a probably big leading cause. Anyways, let us know what you think about this. If you want to live us a little short form responses. We got comment sections on YouTube and Spotify, where you can leave those kind of responses. We have an email at get offended together@gmail.com, where you could send them more. If you have a, you know, a wordy little novella you want to tell us about you can send it that way. Be sure to like and subscribe on the platforms you like to that you particularly made it like us on, I think we're on almost all of them, or you know
Stoney
and share us and share. Please not to
Ian
interrupt you know your sheriff. Share us. We would appreciate that. And until next week, thank you so much for listening. Bye, bye,
Jason
goodbye everyone, and God bless
Ian
John McAfee was one of those rare public figures that was both genuinely important and genuinely hard to pin down. He helped create the early anti virus business, and that part is real history. But over time, he became something else entirely, a libertarian rebel, a crypto promoter, a tax fugitive, a man entangled in a Belize murder investigation and eventually a prisoner in Spain fighting extradition to the US. The official story of his suicide after the extradition ruling, his family challenged that which kept the suspicion alive but not proven. So the real McAfee story is not just about one man. It's about what happens when brilliance, money, drugs, paranoia, politics and the Internet era, celebrity all collide in one human being. Thanks for hanging out with us today. You're the best. Peace.