John McAfee traces his path from NASA and GE to cryptocurrency, leading MGT to an $800 million valuation before its collapse when Bitcoin crashed. He recounts arrests across the Caribbean, claims of being hunted by five governments, and his use of dead man switches to release documents if he vanishes.
25
2011
$800 million
Five
I knew they would come for me and they did. I did so well. Got a job at NASA. Not just normal NASA, but their Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University in Manhattan. There I was assigned the data reduction of the world's first weather satellite, tiros. And that's also where I first learned that there is a thing called computer security. Because they were terrified that the Russians or the Chinese would get access to the data because no one else had any weather satellite, no satellites at all. And it had been transmitted data for years in analog form. And so they said, how do you deal with this? I go, fuck me. I don't know. But you know, I was 25 at the time and 25 will take on any project. And after a year I had designed a system to reduce the data into a. Not just a manageable form, but to an intelligible form at NASA. I understood. Oh, people are concerned about other people accessing data. Well, how interesting. I got a degree in mathematics, undergraduate bachelor's. I went to Louisiana State, then moved to continue polytechnic working on a master's. I decided to take the summer off, but I got a job at General Electric. I didn't know what it was about. They were looking for mathematicians. I went to a training program for three months. I didn't tell them I was going to go back to school. And it was the most technical and still the most technologically complex and intense of all computer disciplines. That means that you have a computer controlling a moving system in real time. If you're off by a fraction of a millisecond, you might destroy a two million dollar steel mill roller. However, after three months I realized, Jesus, this is what I want to do. That's where I really learned what computers really were. People know me from McAfee, but no, that was not my greatest success. That was some triv. It was my future. Things which I did not attach my name to, that taught me and made me all of my money. I got into it in 2011 by peer pressure. My friends literally forced me to read Satoshi's white paper. And when I had done that, I saw immediately the beauty and the power of the mathematics. And I saw that this was potentially world changing. And it has turned out to be. When I started I was the chairman, the CEO of mgt, the world's sixth largest bitcoin mining company. 800 million dollar valuation. What happened is Bitcoin went sky high. And after the quartering it sank to next to nothing. The New York Stock Exchange the following day delisted us. That's what they do. We had to fold the company. I left. That was their shot over the bell. The warning say, you better shut up or we'll destroy you. Well, that just made me mad. You have to understand, I have half a dozen doubles around the world. Many of them are just like me. They take more drugs than necessary, and they drink themselves into a stupid. Listen. I mean, I'm wanted by five world governments, including the United States. The most are richer. God. First of all, they tried to click me in America when they convened a grand jury. I found out about it beforehand. So we left the following day to Florida. We picked up our yacht with Janice, myself, four large dogs, and seven of my staff and sailed away. Went to the Bahamas. We were thumbing up our nose 90 miles from America, sunny on the beach, just having fun. And I knew they would come for me. And they did. Pull over now. That's your final warning. We went to Cuba. We were in Cuba for two months. The Cuban government said, Listen, Ms. Bank, we regret that the US government has requested me return you to America. However, we were disinclined to do so. But, Mr. McAfee, you understand you are now a serious problem to us if you remain in this country. You have 72 hours to get out of the country. Now. We decided to go to the Dominican Republic. We told no one about it. We got to the Dominican Republic, pulled into docked, and we were arrested before we could get off the boat. And they said, Ms. Brackley, I'm sorry, but we have to ship you back to America. I said, well, that's not legal. I didn't come from America. I came from Cuba. The people who cooperated illegally was the head of the police force and the head of the armed forces. So I outed those people. They both had secret bank accounts. The deposits that came in to these accounts, the dates, the amount and from whom, and the withdrawals in cash totaling many times their annual salary. And believe me, I could bring down the U.S. government. I haven't released anything. However, if anything happens to me, absolutely, I've got dead man switches everywhere. Within a day of my disappearance or untimely death, there will be every newspaper in the world pouring through more documents that they could have a hundred people pour through in a hundred years. So, no, it will be chaos. But right now, I just want to be able to live happily, try to make a better world for my children and grandchildren and fish from time to time. And I am. I would not change a single second of this. I would not change my jail time. I would not change. Hiding in the jungles of police while bullets were flying over my head, I would not change a single thing. It.
