What was John McAfee's Net Worth?
John McAfee was an American technology entrepreneur who had a net worth of $4 million at the time of his death, though that estimate requires several caveats: At the peak of his software career John McAfee had a net worth north of $100 million. It is known that he lost the vast majority of his software fortune due to bad investments and the 2008 global recession. In 2019, two years before his death, John claimed he could not afford to pay a court-ordered $25 million wrongful death lawsuit judgment. When he was arrested on tax evasion charges a year later, American Federal prosecutors claimed he had earned $11 million pumping and dumping various cryptocurrencies. John died on June 23, 2021 at the age of 75, reportedly by suicide. He did not leave a will or an estate plan. Two years after his death, his widow Janice was reportedly broke.
John McAfee earned his initial $100 million peak net worth as the founder of McAfee Associates, which released the first commercial antivirus software, VirusScan. The company quickly became a leader in the cybersecurity industry, and McAfee's name became synonymous with antivirus protection. In 1994, McAfee resigned from the company and sold his remaining stake, citing a desire to pursue other interests. He went on to found and invest in various technology companies, including Tribal Voice, QuorumEx, and Future Tense Central.
Throughout his life, McAfee was known for his eccentric behavior and controversial opinions. He was an outspoken libertarian and ran for the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. McAfee also faced legal issues, including allegations of tax evasion and involvement in a murder investigation in Belize, though he maintained his innocence. In his later years, McAfee became increasingly involved in the world of cryptocurrencies, promoting various projects and offering predictions about the future of digital currencies. He also continued to express his views on privacy, security, and government overreach. Despite the controversies surrounding his personal life, John McAfee's impact on the cybersecurity industry cannot be overstated. His pioneering work in antivirus software helped lay the foundation for the modern cybersecurity landscape, and his entrepreneurial spirit inspired countless others in the technology world.
Early Life
John David McAfee was born in Cinderford, England, on September 18, 1945, on a United States Army Base. His mother is British, and his father is an American soldier stationed there at the base. McAfee was raised in Salem, Virginia, in the United States. He has states that he feels just as British as he does America. His father was an abusive alcoholic, and committed suicide by gun when McAfee was fifteen years old. He attended college at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, and graduated in 1967 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. The school later awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) degree in 2008.
Early Career
After graduating from college, from 1968 to 1970 McAfee worked at NASA's Institute for Space Studies, located in New York City. He was a programmer for the program. After leaving NASA, he worked as a software designer at Univac, and then at Xerox as an operating system architect. In 1978, McAfee made the transition to consulting when he joined the Computer Sciences Corporation as a software consultant. Then, for two years from 1980 to 1982, he worked for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
McAfee Associates
It was while he was worked for Lockheed in the 1980s that McAfee began working on developing virus combating software. In particular, he began working on anti-virus software after receiving a copy of the Brain computer virus. In 1987, McAfee left his job to start his own computer anti-virus company, McAfee Associates. A few years later, in 1992, the company became incorporated in the state of Delaware. He remained with the company for two more years before resigning in 1994. Then, two years after McAfee associates went public, he got bored with the software business and sold his entire stake in the company for $100 million.
In 1997, McAfee Associates merged with the company Network General to form Network Associates. Seven years later, Network Associates was renamed McAfee, Inc. McAfee Inc. was bought by Intel in August 2010. It maintained its own branding separate from that of Intel until January 2014, when McAfee-related products began being marketed under the name Intel Security. In 2017, the unit formerly known as McAfee, Inc., was spun out of Intel in a joint venture between Intel and TPG Capital, called McAfee, LLC.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Losing His Fortune
In the mid-1990s, John had grown bored of the software business and decided to sell his entire stake in his namesake company. The sale resulted in John having a $100 million fortune. And while $100 million was nothing to sneeze at, had John held onto his stake, by 2010 when McAfee was acquired by Intel for $7.7 billion, he would have been a billionaire. Perhaps a multi-billionaire with dividends and other compensation.
And to make matters worse, John did not maintain his $100 million fortune.
A series of bad investments, including a large bet on Lehman Brothers' bonds, wiped out large swaths of John's net worth and ultimately forced him to sell real estate and other assets for pennies on the dollar. For example, McAfee sold a $25 million Colorado estate for just $5.7 million. He also sold a mansion in Hawaii, a ranch in New Mexico and a Cessna private jet. In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, John was reportedly out of cash, though his net worth did bubble back up to around $4 million by the time he decamped to Belize in 2009.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Legal Issues
McAfee formerly resided in Orange Walk Town, Belize. In April 2012, his property was raided by Belizean Police Department's Gang Suppression Unit. McAfee was arrested by the police for unlicensed drug manufacturing and possession of an unlicensed weapon, but was later released without charge.
Later that same year, in November 2012, the Belizean police began investigating McAfee as a person of interest relating to the murder of an American expatriate. Gregory Viant Faull had been found dead in his home in Belize on November 11, 2012. He died from a gunshot wound. Faull had been McAfee's neighbor, which is why police were interested in investigation his connections to Faull. McAfee ended up fleeing Belize after police sought him for questioning related to Faull's murder. He attempted to seek asylum in Guatemala City, Guatemala, but was arrested on December 5, 2012, for illegally entering Guatemala. While he was arrested, his asylum request was denied, and had to wait for deportation in a Guatemalan detention center holding facility.
Eventually, after he suffered from what ABC News reported to be two minor heart attacks in the detention center, McAfee was released on December 6, 2012, and deported from Guatemala back to the United States. McAfee later said he faked the heart attacks in order to buy time for his attorney to file an appeal for him.
McAfee has since had many more run-ins with the law. In August 2015, he was arrested in Tennessee for driving under the influence and possession of a firearm while intoxicated. Then, in November 2018 the Circuit Court in Orlando, Florida, declined to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit that had been brought against McAfee for Faull's death in Guatemala. Subsequently, another suit was brought against him in early 2019, with a Grand Jury convened to indict him on tax-related charges. Thus, he announced in January 2019 that he was running from U.S. authorities and living on a boat.
He was arrested several more times. In July 2019, he was arrested in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, while his yacht was docked there. He was released after being held for four days.
In October 2020, John was arrested in Spain after the U.S. Department of Justice requested his detainment for tax evasion.
On June 23, 2021, the Spanish government announced they would allow John to be extradited back to the United States. Tragically, John took his own life later that same day. He was 75.
Personal Life
After McAfee arrived back in the U.S. following his deportation from Guatemala in December 2012, he was solicited by a sex worker in South Beach, Miami. This woman, Janice Dyson, ended up marrying McAfee in 2013 after they began a relationship together.
