I first spoke to John McAfee in late 2013 for a couple of security pieces and the launch of his new security company. I was quickly faced with the paradox of this mismatch between what ‘everyone knew’ about him and the man I was talking to.  Fluid and versed on technology despite having been out of the game for nearly 20 years, he certainly didn’t come off like he was crazed or on anything.

At the very least, he was certainly not uninteresting.  Some weeks later, I asked to see his forthcoming Android security product Cognisant, and he agreed to show me the alpha version, but only in person.

Now, I’m in Montreal with a good friend and incredible artist that I recruited to make the trip.  McAfee’s phone and emails have been dark for the last 24 hours.  I’m wondering if I’ve wasted my time.  Suddenly I’m getting texts again, from a different phone number, but it’s him.

“Meet at this coffee shop at 9:30 AM,” said the text.

Sitting at the coffee shop, twenty minutes go by.

“Meet at this other coffee shop and send a description of yourself,” said the next text, from a different number this time.

It’s misdirection.  Ten minutes and two cups of coffee later, a man walked up, almost floating over to the table where we’ve settled in – ball cap, shades, trench coat.  I almost didn’t notice him.  He wanted the spot where his back was against the wall.  We followed his lead.  We turned off our phones, and removed the batteries.

“Do you want a cup?” I asked McAfee as I sat down.

“No.  I’ve had too much already,” he replied.

It certainly seemed like it. He looked scruffy. He was quite fidgety as his fingers tapped the table. We exchanged pleasantries while his steel blue eyes were darted back and forth across the shop.  For a few moments, I wasn’t sure if it was actually him.

“I’m just trying to survive, you know – with a normal life, like you guys,” he said.

In retrospect, I think he assumed we knew much more about what was going on than we actually did.  After an hour of discussion and background we made our way to an office where he demonstrated the phone app he is working on.

Cognisant

 

As it happens, yes, I’ve seen it, and it works.  Cognisant is very real.  I currently run the alpha version on my phone and it is pretty amazing.  It even removed my Verizon crapware with one button (sorry Verizon! But our business will conclude in 82 days.).

–That product was to have hit the market several days ago, but McAfee considers himself a perfectionist and has ordered some late-breaking design changes.   The app name changed to a more ‘international’ spelling. The team is working up some documentation for publication as well and there is a second, now beta version that I am installing on my test phone tonight.  ETA to production – one week or less.

The contrast at that first meeting was as extreme as it could be.

The dueling McAfees: the sure, confident, compelling, character that is constantly on television versus the man who looked nervous, sizing everyone up and led us on a mystery hunt to his location.  I’d read some stuff about him online and it kind of seemed that perhaps he was seeing people that weren’t there.

After a while he got more comfortable, we had some laughs and that notion completely went away.

It all very reminiscent of our first phone conversation:

John Casaretto: Good morning. This is John from SiliconANGLE. You said this would be a good time to call you.
John McAfee: How tall are you and how much do you weigh?
JC: Ummm,  this is John. I called about the cybersecurity prediction story.
JM: You're not a bodyguard?  You didn't answer an ad about a bodyguard?
JC: No.
JM: I recognize the phone prefix.  Are you in Denver Sir?
JC: Yes, Mr. McAfee.
JM: Very well.

Immediately after the terse initial exchange, out of nowhere, it was as if somebody flicked a light switch on a wall across the room; he went into full interview mode. This is the McAfee I had expected.  We went through the body of questions, he didn’t miss a beat.  It was a great discussion.  He told to call any time on “this number” if I have questions, and this number only.  That’s where my curiosity in this story had begun.

I later found out he had placed ads looking for security guards, and he was screening me to see if I had known anything about it.  The reason why he was putting out those ads was to draw out the people he claimed were looking for him.  According to McAfee, he received many responses, and he thought many of the applicants were from cartel members. As evidence, McAfee cited one interview in particular where he ate lunch together with the applicant for over an hour, and during that time the man never asked for any details of the job.

Why Write About McAfee?

 

In a life of 68 years, John McAfee’s story is unlike any other life story that you’ve probably ever heard.  Much of it is legend, and much of it is true.  He is a self-described eccentric millionaire.  He shunned the iconic lifestyle of Silicon Valley.  He started and closed other businesses.  Started a recreational pilot venture,  sold off tons of properties for pennies on the dollar.  Check.  Check.  Check.  There is tons of backstory here, but those topics are for another time, perhaps in his own memoirs.

What I do know is that he is always searching for things that are interesting, unique and a challenge.

He has said to me many times, “Do you love what you do?  Then do it.”

As he explains, that is the reason why he left McAfee Associates sold his interest off.  He did not love what he was doing anymore.

I asked him if he regretted not holding on to at least some of it, which ultimately sold for a perhaps overpriced $7+ billion.

“No, I don’t regret it not one bit,” he said. “I was done, and I don’t agree with the notion it was overpriced. McAfee was worth every penny.  What they’ve done with it since then is another story.”

This search for challenge (and even adventure), he explained, are the reasons why he insists on doing things his way; why he started an antibiotic research lab on his own, why he started his AeroTrekking venture,  and why he moved to a country far away and tried to change things for the better so he could call it home.

Needless to say, it hasn’t always worked out.

A Public Perception Improperly Colored?

 

What most people “know” about him was based on a Wired story that emerged in 2012 about his life’s adventure to that point, which in truth only portrayed the most salacious slice of the story. Still, it’s a big part of what the public thinks, and it calls his character into question right off the bat, portraying him as a possible drug addict, drug manufacturer and as a crazed, dangerous man.

This has become the de-facto canon that people talk about.  After the Wired article was published, a widely-circulated report indicated that the trip to Belize the article was based from was done in order to put together a movie script.

Ideally that kind of revelation would have factored into the public understanding of that article which of course had no shortage of sensational elements, interviews and an ultimately strung together, undoubtedly incredible story.  It was meant to be sensational, like other stories before and since.

Consequently, the general public, the majority of news outfits assumes that he manufactured drugs, took bath salts and killed a man.

I was initially in that camp myself.  At that time, many little things I thought I knew about him didn’t make sense, especially when I didn’t get that impression of the man, so I began to ask questions like the following: Why would a millionaire go to a third-world country to manufacture meth?  People were buying this.

Or this question:  Why would a 66 year-old McAfee climb up to a man’s second story ledge thirty feet off the ground to do drugs?   The man has what could be described as an ultra-chill pad on a beautiful beach, but yeah, I’m going to go climb up there and do drugs – because.  It sounds a bit preposterous.  Is it possible it was all sensationalized?

Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to have their curiosity satisfied?

 

“Here’s my chance,” I thought. “I’ll ask McAfee.”

And so this journey started.

He wants nothing hidden.  He drives around with guns, deal with it.  He slept with seven women, deal with it.  He has demons he’s open to discussing, but insists the focus shouldn’t be on him.  Many of these stories have been debated to death.  I know that.  Commenters on all sides will undoubtedly debate the merits and probability of the entire McAfee story, including everything I now write.  I knew this going in.

The truth about journalism is sensationalism sells. If it bleeds it leads, because it’s all about the page views. The truth about this story, though is that it’s incredible enough on its own; no sensationalism required.

McAfee is known as a notorious trickster and is a master of misdirection, his pranks are legendary. In one famous prank he took a reporter along on a story about what he called “observational yoga.” The stories about bath salts are based on what he has called “another of his pranks,” and can be traced back to a forum on the topic of a fictitious drug and outrageous ways of how to take it.  That has taken on a life of its own.

Is it possible that I would be writing about McAfee’s latest prank?

 

Maybe, but that would mean he likes living in the middle of nowhere. It would he enjoys the excruciating pain he lives in because he won’t go to a hospital to get his back checked, and it would mean he dislikes living a lifestyle that most of us can only dream of.

This man has built himself many incredible homes with his fortune, and while he maintains that he has little fortune left, I know better.  He controls the reality he wants people to see.  He is a showman, but he wants privacy, and we are back to another paradox about the man: the scene in the Wired story with the gun, one which he says was merely theater. Also a move that McAfee regrets set the tone of a wild man with a death wish.

In my time with McAfee, I can speak to what I saw, which was certainly incongruent with the image of him portrayed by previous popular media reports.

Have I ever witnessed John McAfee doing drugs?  No.  Not once. I spent three whole days with him and met him two other times.  He didn’t smell of anything, his pupils weren’t dilated. he didn’t give me a blood sample, but I’m sure I could have asked for one.  I have spoken to many other parties as to his character, and researched countless other reports and I haven’t found one thing that could be verified. His fidgeting on the first day when I met him could be the age of a mature gentleman, or it could have been that the things he reports are quite real and he’s just lived through something that average people couldn’t imagine.

He doesn’t appear to be a particularly healthy man; he coughs a lot, has picked up smoking and his back pain means just about everything he does causes some discomfort.  I witnessed him complain to his wife Janice about how the Tylenol he took made him feel.

He also talked about drugs and how they destroyed lives, especially children.  This was evident in an anecdote about a massive estate he had once built in Hawaii, but never set foot in because he had challenged the local government and drug dealers to clean up their act.

Have I ever witnessed John McAfee drinking?  No.  He eats like a horse, but he doesn’t drink like a fish.  He prefers water.

Did John McAfee really live and sleep with seven women?  Yes.  According to what he has told me, they were all of legal age. He does not shy away from this at all.  McAfee knows it is objectionable to some.  Still, I witnessed him wire money to a number of the girls and it was his wife that reminded him to do so.  Janyce is incredibly charming, smart and McAfee absolutely reveres her.  They are connected through this year-long experience and they seemed very happy.

Is McAfee a good shot?  He is very experienced and a tremendous shot.

Keep reading SiliconANGLE for the rest of the posts the McAfee series.

John McAfee’s Ultimate Hack.

Deconstructing McAfee.

John McAfee in Belize, land of pirates.

More to come…

Pictures courtesy of John McAfee, Eddie Mize