CW 353: NSA-Proof Internet Browsing with John McAfee Developer of the McAfee Antivirus Software & Founder of McAfee Associates

John McAfee is in the news, as he is trying to create an NSA-proof gadget used for private internet browsing, called "Decentral." [read more] McAfee, original creator of McAfee Antivirus software was born in the United Kingdom and raised in Salem, Virginia, United States. 

 

McAfee was employed as a programmer by NASA's Institute for Space Studies in New York City from 1968 to 1970. From there he went to Univac as a software designer and later to Xerox. as an operating system architect. In 1978 he joined Computer Sciences Corporation as a software consultant. Later, while employed by Lockheed in the 1980s, McAfee received a copy of the Pakistani Brain computer virus and began developing software to combat viruses.

 

In 1987 McAfee founded McAfee Associates, a computer anti-virus company. He was the first to distribute anti-virus software using the shareware business model. In 1989, he quit Lockheed and began working full-time at McAfee Associates, which he initially operated from his home in Santa Clara, California.The company was incorporated in Delaware in 1992, and McAfee resigned from the company in 1994. Two years after McAfee Associates went public, McAfee sold his remaining stake in the company.

 

Network Associates was formed in 1997 as a merger of McAfee Associates and Network General. This company later became Network Associates, a name it retained for seven years until it was renamed McAfee. Now a subsidiary of Intel corporation^, McAfee remains today as one of the largest anti-virus companies in the world.

 

Other business ventures that he founded included Tribal Voice, which developed one of the first instant messaging programs^, PowWow. In 2000, John McAfee invested in and joined the board of directors of Zone Labs, makers of firewall software, prior to its acquisition by Check Point Software in 2003.

 

In August 2009, The New York Times reported that McAfee's personal fortune had declined to $4 million from a peak of $100 million, the effect of the global financial crisis and recession on his investments.

Beginning in February 2010, McAfee started a new venture in the field of bacterial quorum sensing. His company QuorumEx has its headquarters in Belize and is working towards producing commercial all natural antibiotics based on anti-quorum sensing technology. In 2013 McAfee started a new company, Future Tense Central, to produce a secure computer network device called the D-Central.