And the most perplexing man in the world, too, judging by his latest work. John McAfee recently released a high-production viral video called "How to Uninstall McAfee Antivirus," displaying a twisted sense of humor about himself. Big surprise.
McAfee has been a lot of things in his life: a leader of MENSA, the society for people in the top two percent IQ; a computer programmer for NASA, Xerox, and Lockheed; founder of McAfee, the eponymous largest anti-virus company in the world; yoga instructor; and eccentric recluse, consumer of experimental drugs, murder suspect and fugitive from the law in Belize. He's had an interesting life, to say the least.
Now the offbeat millionaire is sending up the software company he originally founded and created in a NSFW (language, scantily-clad strippers) video he made, which instructs users of the McAfee Antivirus software how to get rid of it. Dressed in a posh red smoking jacket and sitting in a (fake) high-class personal library, McAfee explains in the video, "Although I've had nothing to do with this company for over 15 years, I still get volumes of mail asking, 'How do I uninstall this software?'"
"I have no idea," he answers, before an assistant's arm comes into frame, lighting a hundred dollar bill, with which McAfee lights a cigarette.
McAfee then reads some strongly-worded hate mail about how annoying, ill-designed, and processor-sapping McAfee's software is, before getting his lab assistant "Bartholomew" to go through the steps of removing McAfee antivirus.
Meanwhile, McAfee parties in his underwear with a dozen half-naked women, drinking, smoking, and snorting bath salts. He must miss the old days in Belize.
McAfee snipes at the current owners of McAfee, Intel, in the video, "Fifteen years ago I had some beautiful software and they took it over. I don't know what they did," before shooting the computer with a pistol. According to ABC News, Intel has responded to the video, saying, "While we take any attack on our products seriously, these ludicrous statements have no basis in reality."
Ludicrous, yes. But no basis in reality? McAfee's software aside, the video spoofs the absurdity of McAfee's own recent past. He moved to Belize about six years ago, and wound up living like a mix of "Scarface" and Colonel Kurtz in a jungle estate with several girlfriends at the time. He experimented with bath salts and other hard drugs, and was raided by the Belize police after being suspected of operating a meth lab on his property.
Inside McAfee's house, the police found tens of thousands of dollars in cash, several firearms, and, indeed, a lab, which McAfee was actually using to experiment with making advanced antibiotics for his latest a start up, QuorumEx. If the police raid and the copious stimulants and hallucinogens weren't enough to make McAfee paranoid of his new found home (McAfee claims to also have single-handedly spied on much of the Belizean government, using keystroke logging, software-tainted computers that he gave to people connected to the police and Cabinet), later on, his neighbor, whom McAfee apparently wasn't friendly with, was found dead in his beachfront home with a gunshot to the head.
McAfee was named a "person of interest" in the case (not a suspect), but fled anyway to Guatemala, crossing the boarder illegally by boat. He was arrested there, the Guatemalan government denied him asylum, and began processes to deport him back to Belize to face justice. But after McAfee faked heart attacks to prevent extradition to Belize, the Guatemalan government, understandably, wanted to be rid of this crazy person, so they deported him to the United States.
McAfee, in the video, clearly has a good time with his oddball-millionaire persona, and, if you can get over the fact that he fled from clearing his name of murder, you can appreciate the humor of the video.
In fact, McAfee's got a couple of surprisingly witty lines, and the video is close to the quality of something you might find on viral comedy video site FunnyorDie.
So what's next on the list of the 67-year old man who has done everything? A spot on SNL?