Former employee of Dr. McAfee here.  I realize that for a lot of people here, John McAfee is something of an make-believe person, or at best associated with the anti-malware software company that he founded (and left nineteen years ago) but to me he is someone that I know, worked for and stayed in infrequent contact with over the years (exchanging emails once in a while).  With that in mind, I would like to address the allegations about drug manufacturing and use.

When I first started working for John out of high school, one of the first things he did was to sit me down and read me the riot act about drugs.  At that point in his life, he’d been sober for eight or nine years (I think) and told me about how drugs and alcohol had ruined his life and that he had never done a single worthwhile thing in his life until he stopped using them.  That is advice I have taken to heart and over the years have avoided them.

At McAfee Associates, there was no alcohol or drugs allowed on site, at company events or even going out to dinner together.  Showing up drunk, stoned or otherwise intoxicated would have gotten you fired pretty darn fast.  As much as John ignored his employees’ lifestyles, there was one thing which was inexcusable in his eyes.

I know that continued onward at Tribal Voice (his first company post-McAfee Associates), where he even hired some people he had met through AA.

After that we drifted apart, but, like many former abusers, he was still very preachy about drugs and alcohol and a few years ago ran into some problems due to that in Hawaii. where he was living at the time.

In Belize, he started looking into the quorum sensing properties of bacteria as a means of developing antibiotics, which is why he had a research lab far in excess of what would be required to make meth.  That business didn’t pan out, and he started up a new venture bioprospecting for topical antiseptics.  The allegations of running a meth lab were dropped, and he has already admitted in his blog that the aphrodisiac mentioned was just a hoax.

There are a couple of things I do hope people keep in mind, and that’s that several of John McAfee’s dogs were poisoned, and that his neighbor, Mr. Faull, was murdered.  It would be nice if people could keep those occurred, and this is not a particularly humorous matter.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

NPD

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia

Plate Full of Crazy

Bring Back My Bonnie to Me

Pompous Arse

The “Company” is Out to Get Me

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha

Oh My

Gorilla, Gorilla, Gorilla

All (human) babies are assholes. However, not all baby dogs are furry idiots. 

Of course, many (human) babies grow out of it…dogs, the ones born furry idiots, stay life-long furry idiots slightly less often than the  (human) babies who remain unrepentant, life-long assholes.

I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that.

Anyway, he has a cartoon called “Babies Are Assholes” which he describes as one of the most hilariously offensive three-word phrases imaginable.  I think “dogs are furry idiots” is a similarly hilariously taboo phrase.  But just because I think it’s funny doesn’t mean I think it’s (universally) true.

He’s actually smarter than many computer programmers. After all, he’s never released crappy code.

“That’s the thing about WASPs. They love animals, but they hate people.”

Some of the details about McAfee’s life down there are pretty effed as well.  Doesn’t sound like he’s put himself in the sort of situation that brings out the best in people.

Innocent ’til proven guilty, yada yada.

Clever man, this McGyver guy.