Introducing: Foundering - The John McAfee Story

Jamie Tarabay (0:02)

In the 1980s and 90s, John McAfee was a Silicon Valley icon.

SPEAKER_2 (0:07)

Well, great, we were supposed to have a meeting at 8 this morning, and he said, yeah, but I was hungover.

Jamie Tarabay (0:13)

His name was synonymous with computer anti-virus software.

SPEAKER_2 (0:17)

So I said, would you mind if I came over to the lab and spent some time with you there to try to understand the technology better? And it took me all of 15 minutes in the R&D lab to realize he was brilliant.

Jamie Tarabay (0:35)

He helped invent the modern cybersecurity industry, and it made him fabulously wealthy.

SPEAKER_3 (0:43)

When we were together, women would just like follow his spell and sleep with him or go away with him. It was just amazing.

Jamie Tarabay (0:51)

But after he sold his company and basked in his riches, things took a dark turn.

SPEAKER_4 (0:58)

And he just slowly, like a spider, throwing a web around its prey.

SPEAKER_5 (1:06)

It just becomes this galloping circus of stupidity that he finds so cute. A man is dead.

SPEAKER_2 (1:16)

I will not allow them to imprison me and shut my voice down.

Jamie Tarabay (1:21)

I'm your host, Jamie Tarabay. I cover cybersecurity for Bloomberg News.

I've been a foreign correspondent for over 20 years. Throughout my career, I've reported on powerful people with God complexes. People who didn't believe they had to be held accountable for their actions. People who may have gotten away with murder.

SPEAKER_3 (1:45)

They want to silence me.

SPEAKER_6 (1:47)

I will not allow that.

Jamie Tarabay (1:49)

This season on Foundering will retrace the life of John McAfee, from his rise in Silicon Valley to his chaotic journey through Central America and how his choices led him down a path toward a public and decades-long self-destruction.

SPEAKER_6 (2:07)

When I heard that he was arrested in Spain, I knew that he had been with them.

And he's a very powerful man. I don't want to get too far into it just to protect myself.

Jamie Tarabay (2:19)

Foundering, a podcast from Bloomberg Technology. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.