WEBVTT - Part One: John McAfee Is Not Funny Anymore 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:06.720 M. Hey, what's scrambling my eggs? M Robert Evans. This 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:09.720 is behind the bastards. That's my new introduction. Sophie is 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:13.640 crawling under the desk, so overwhelmed with shame that she 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:18.160 can no longer sit upright. Uh, but there's no taking 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:20.480 it out, there's no editing it. I'm I'm sitting here 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:23.119 in the studio with my guest, Lacey Mosley. Lacy, how 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:26.200 are you doing? I'm doing good? Lacy. You are a comedian, 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:31.120 an actress, also deeply embarrassed in a scam. Godess, no, 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:35.600 I love them what scrambled in my age? Thank you? No, 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.560 they would not know, they would not, but we lost 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:43.279 that demographic, so lazy, you are a scam got Us 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:47.400 has already stated you were on our episode about Karl 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:54.640 may Sh Hitler's favorite author, scammer. Today we're talking about 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.440 another scammer, and in fact, we're talking about a scammer 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.280 who fooled me for a little while. So yeah, this 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:02.480 is gonna good. So he's good. I don't know if 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.280 you i'd say he's good, But like you know, everybody's 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:09.160 got something they're vulnerable to from a scammer. And I'm 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.120 gonna find out what your vulnerability. Yeah, I've got a 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.600 vulnerability to the scam. This guy was popping all right. 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:20.040 Have you ever heard of John McAfee. Um, if it's 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:25.040 involved with the computer program virus virus, Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.319 This is the guy who invented that. He's quite a character, 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:32.200 and that's what we're talking about today. John David McAfee 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.280 was born in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, England, 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:39.399 on September eighteenth. His father was an American soldier and 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.440 his mother was a British person. He was raised in Salem, Virginia, 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.800 although other sources say Roanoke. Like most things about John McAfee, 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:47.640 the story is a little different depending on who you 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:49.520 hear it from, which is kind of one of the 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:53.640 first signs that somebody's a little bit of a scammer. Now. 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.120 McAfee's mom worked as a bank teller. His dad was 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:58.720 a road surveyor and a drunk. McAfee says he was 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.280 a very unhappy man and who beat both John and 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.120 his mother. He shot himself and John was fifteen. Uh 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.320 and McAfee later told Wired in an interview, quote, every 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:09.400 day I wake up with him. Every relationship I have. 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.240 He's by my side every mistrust. He is the negotiator 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:16.160 of that mistrust. So my life is fucked. So starting 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:19.320 this on a dark note, but also a very juicy backstory, 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:24.080 like a scammer needs like something to feign vulnerability with everybody. 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.320 That story. He's like, yeah, I stold at your wallet, 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:34.919 but really, my dad stole his dad, his whole life. 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:36.440 I love it. Wait to his dad have an accent? 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:38.400 Do we know? No? I mean his dad was an American. 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:40.360 I'm guessing his mom did. It would have been exact. 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.120 He has kind of a weird voice, but I wouldn't 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:44.560 say he sounds he doesn't. She doesn't sound British. No, alright, 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:49.960 scam level. Oh yeah, I trust anything British people say. Absolutely. 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:51.800 It's a superpower they have. It's why they ruled the 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:54.040 world briefly. Yeah, exactly. That's why when you become rich, 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.919 you become British. That's why Madonna is British now exactly. 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:58.720 I as soon too will be British one day. I'll 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:00.800 come on this podcast and all of enough money tod 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.480 like this, but continue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, that's a 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:05.880 that's a great that's a great Madonna pretending to be 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.600 British accent, by the way, because it doesn't sound British 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:12.679 or fake British, it sounds Madonna fake British exactly. Specific 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:17.400 shout out to a number one scammer. John enrolled in 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.120 Rowan Oak College. He sold magazine scriptions door to door 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:22.480 in order to make money for Booze, which, like his dad, 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.400 he drank way too much of uh. In interviews, McAfee 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:27.840 claims he made a fortune in the subscriptions business by 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:29.760 telling people who answered the door that they'd won a 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.080 free subscription, they just had to pay a shipping and 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:37.480 handling figure. Yes, that's the oldest late night TV scam ever. 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.080 That's how I got my ice potty. It was free, 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:44.240 but I just paid and shipping and handling ice potty. 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.280 You know, it's not a potty like for peeing, like 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:48.920 like you know how it's like a bowl. It's probably 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.280 about the name, but it's a bowl and then the 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.040 ice is made on the sides, and then you cracked 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:56.280 the bowl and you got a bowl of ice. I've 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.520 never heard you've never seen this info martial. Now, can 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.320 you sell me one of these fantastic products? Lay listen, 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:09.720 ice without the limitations of plastic containers. Are you entertaining? 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.120 I spoke it for your one? Are you sick? I 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:24.880 spoke it for your head? Are you ice? Helmet? But yeah, 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.000 that's how they get you, y'all. And that's door to 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:28.920 door too, so there's no way to confirm or deny. 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:31.480 Shout out to him. Always door to door. People like 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.120 are normally scammers. That's like the first startup scam for 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:38.840 most scammers. And you would think that maybe we'd have gene. Yes, 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:44.039 Genie sounds sexier than past. I get that ice. Genie 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:46.840 is free. You just gotta send a little money. So 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:49.599 John got his bachelor's degree in nineteen sixty seven. He 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:53.360 started studying for a PhD in mathematics at Northeast Louisiana 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.719 State College, but he got expelled for sleeping with and 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:58.640 then marrying an undergraduate student he was supposed to be managing. 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.479 He bounced around so of coding jobs, but his career 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.280 was interrupted when he got busted buying pot. He managed 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:07.040 to avoid any sort of conviction, probably because he was 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.760 a white guy. Uh get busted by pot? I mean 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:13.880 who was getting busted by? And this is nineteen six, 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.080 the sixties, so maybe it happened more. I feel like 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.760 that's that's even more cause for it not to be 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:20.880 how you got bust. We both come from Dallas. I 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:24.000 know people who got busted buying weed. Oh yeah, this 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:26.400 feels like the laziest way to go to jail is 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.120 like it has to feel dumb. He wasn't just going 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.440 around everywhere like free love freeweed, I think in some places. 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.640 But if he was in Louisiana, like like an undercover cop, 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.160 try to something, Hi, sir, would you like to partake it? 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:43.920 Would you like some? Mary? Joanna, Mary, Mary Anne Jane. 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.800 Do you like puffing on reverse? Meet me in this alley? Yeah? 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.679 Maybe he was just shitty at buying pot, But anyway, 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.800 he got out of the charges. In the nineteen sixty nine, 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.880 the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company hired him to basically prog 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.279 him their IBM based computers to schedule trains. Now, McAfee 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.320 didn't know how to do any of this. He wrote 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:07.520 out a fake resume and he got the job because 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:09.160 there was no internet back then. There's no way to 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.680 check on the ship, like, yeah, shout out to him. 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:16.160 Here's wired quote. After six months, McAfee's system began to 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:19.000 turn out optimize train routing patterns. One morning, he decided 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.200 to experiment with another psychedelic called d MT. He did 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.400 a line, felt nothing, and decided to snort a whole 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:26.760 bag of the orange Is powder. Within an hour, my 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.559 mind was shattered. McAfee says part of him still believes 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:31.479 he's still on that trip, that everything since has been 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:33.920 one giant hallucination, and that one day he'll snap out 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:35.640 of it and find himself back on his couch and St. 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:37.920 Louis listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:40.919 What have you ever had a drug trip like that? No, 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:44.880 because I'm just I'm scared to go that deep. But 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.040 I will say that I have done acid, and you 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.200 could definitely go to work our acid. You know, everyone's 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:53.760 made ascid out to be so crazy. I know someone 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.960 who micro does his acid every single day and the 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.479 happiest person I've ever met. And apparently you can do 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:02.760 your job on acid. I've done a lot of different 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.679 jobs on acid. One episode of this podcast was recorded 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.160 on acid, but I won't tell. Everyone has to get 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:12.520 but he's got to guess which episode. If you guess correct, 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:14.400 we will send you I can I can't send you, 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:17.960 I will send you behind the bastard swag. All you 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:20.080 have to send me is a hundred dollars for shipping 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.600 and handling. I'll send you some acid. All you've got 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.600 to send me is I didn't even notice she doing 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:28.040 a scam there, Lacy. That was good, like the finesse. 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.000 You gotta have the finesse ready made. That so smooth. 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:33.560 But yeah, so you can do shot on assets. Are 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.160 you telling me that this guy scammed his way into 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:40.840 this job that he had no routing trains? So also, 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.360 can we just realize how with the gravity of train 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.360 routing and they didn't even ask, They didn't even ask 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:49.640 my man is to like route one train, you know 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.120 in a training process that we're like, here, can you 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:53.920 show us how you route the train? Like, so, trains 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:55.600 could have been crashing, people could have just been dying 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.600 left around. People just trusted anything printed on paperback then 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:04.840 was like why OK, and it's embossed, all right? What's this? 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.800 He vet? Oh the job is yours. The job is yours, sir. 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.320 Let's put some lives in this man's hands right away. 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.640 Oh god? But then he got good at it? Well, yeah, 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:19.440 I mean maybe it's just not that hard. I've never 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.840 routed trains. Neither have I yea, but I can see 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:25.320 how Like there's that guy Doc Ellis who pitched a 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:28.400 no hitter in baseball on LSD, Like, I can see 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.080 how the way that acid works, how you could you 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:33.240 could do that sort of job. Well, for sure, because 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.280 you're like, it's about focus and stuff. I remember just 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:39.960 staring at some trees for yeah, And I understand what 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:42.079 he's saying about, like having a trip that goes so 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:44.400 far that you're never quite sure that you've come back 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:46.280 from it. Because I thought there's there's a couple of those. 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:47.719 I still wake up in the middle of the night 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.320 sometimes pretty sure. I'm back in Denton at in the 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:56.800 morning twelve years ago. That is a specific I did 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:58.640 a lot of drugs in den back in the day. Right, 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:00.600 Is this a good place in dn Are you like, oh, 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.360 I'm back in that dinner is very good place. And 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.360 didn't This is very true, there's no good Sorry didn't 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:11.000 Texas you know your trash. We all know some solid 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:18.040 DFW area. I'm back at the water Burger. I can 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.400 tell it's didn't because there's that smell in the air. Right, 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:23.560 drugs in the Bama so I could think I'm back 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:25.560 somewhere nice. Yeah, that would have been That would have 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.760 been a wiser choice. So drugs did as drugs do, 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:33.080 and McAfee accelerated into a massive, uncontrollable addiction. He started 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.559 doing cocaine every morning, drinking a bottle of hard liquor 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:37.960 every day. His marriage fell apart. You know all the 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.000 things that you expect from a serious substance abuse problem. 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:42.880 And I don't think he's lying about this. Just based 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:44.920 on what comes next, I'm pretty sure this part's true. 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:47.640 In the nineteen seventies, he moved to Silicon Valley, where 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.000 drugs come from, and of course his problems got even worse. 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:52.800 But still he was able to maintain a sometimes unstable 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.320 but generally profitable career as a programmer. By nineteen eighty three, 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:58.760 he was director of engineering at a company called Omex. 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.120 He was thirty eight years a selling cocaine to his 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.880 employees and railing lines off his desk every morning in 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:06.400 Santa clar In. This might have made him one of 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.000 the less wild middle managers in the country. Look, I 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:11.800 watched woof of wall ship and yeah, that ship is problematic. 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:13.920 And I'm glad work places are safe, but by O, boy, 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.360 would I have loved to just have one day at 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:21.240 a job where everybody was just doing cocaine in the bathroom. Alright, 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.160 is everyone here for the morning meeting gregor? Okay? And 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:27.160 that's part of why I hate those guys, because they 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.240 had to like funk with people's money, and they had 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.200 to like I'm gonna guess most of them were rape two. 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:35.960 If we could have all just made it be a 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:38.320 thing where everybody was just always doing drugs at work, 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.640 what a better economy that would be. The FBI was 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.920 just railing lines of you know, PCP or something and 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.720 then going out in the morning, Like yeah, but so 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:51.000 much energy, so much energy, you know what I mean? 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:54.000 Not much I could get done every day the shutdown. 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:57.160 They wouldn't have even noticed, Like it's been thirty days. 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.479 I haven't slept in thirty days. Oh, I haven't gotten paid. 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:05.360 I got a check on this. I need to buy more. Unfortunately, 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.520 one of the side of extra drugs is poor judgment. 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:12.079 So that is a big part of the John McAfee story. Yeah, 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.640 so he describes himself at this time as constantly terrified 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.360 about running out of drugs. He contemplated suicide on the 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.640 daily basis, and eventually misery drove him to a therapist 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:24.960 who sent him to Alcoholics anonymous, And that seemed to 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.920 work really well for John McAfee for a little while. 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.199 He sobered up, he claims forever. But as you'll learn, 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.600 what John claim should not be taken at face value 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.000 at any rate. He told Wired, his first A meeting 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.240 is what really started his life. Now sober McAfee swared 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.960 to unthinkable heights. He got a job designing software for 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:44.679 Lockheed Martin UH and it was there that he came 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:48.200 across his very first computer virus, something called the Pakistani 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.559 brain ter virus is good weird names. Here's a wonderful 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:54.040 Fast Company article on John written by a guy named 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:57.199 Jeff wise quote. Seeking an opportunity, he picked the virus 0:11:57.200 --> 0:11:58.760 apart and figured out how to defeat it. Then he 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.040 built a program called virus Scan that could detect him 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:05.440 disarm multiple threats automatically. The program, the first commercial antivirus software, 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:07.880 was an impressive achievement, but it's what he did next 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.360 that was true genius. See John didn't start selling his 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.160 anti virus instantly. He started giving it away. He just 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:16.000 put it out there for any company to use. And 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:18.440 this was an early enough era that nobody else was 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.240 doing this, So all these companies that had just now 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.160 learned and like viruses were a problem. Some ceo wakes 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:25.719 up in the morning season news store and he's like, 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.400 oh my god, we have ten thousand computers. He learns 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:31.120 there's a free program. So all these companies start downloading 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.400 John's free program to give him a free sample. You 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:36.720 get him that he's doing the same thing the drug 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.080 dealers do. Yeah, he's also doing the same thing he 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:41.920 did with him Damn magazine. Yeah, you get a free subscription. 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:44.880 Yeah it's free. It's free, buddy. Yeah. In no time, 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:47.719 he had like thirty million people like using his software, 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.120 and within a couple of years, half of the fortune 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.920 five hundred companies used McAfee any virus software. So we 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.080 started McAfee Associates out of his small home in Santa Clara, 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.440 and he eventually started offering licenses to these companies, and 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.720 because they were big companies, they wanted the security of 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.440 knowing this isn't just a free product. We're like paying 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:07.920 a company to maintain our stuff and make sure. So 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.079 he kind of went seamlessly from free product to making 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.960 millions and millions of dollars. He became the world's biggest 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.520 evangelist of the apocalyptic dangers of computer viruses. He started 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:22.920 showing up on television invented is that, No, this is 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.640 this is prior to that. We're talking like the late eighties. Yeah, yea, 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:28.360 so he would he would just show up. But he 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:29.920 was one of the first guys showing up on TV 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:34.040 and like daily news programs talking about viruses. Yeah, scaring 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:35.800 us about this virus is going to do this. It's 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.400 gonna do this. And in nineteen eighty nine he wrote 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:42.480 a book called Computer Viruses, Worms, data diddlers, killer programs 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:44.959 and other Threats to your system. There's a lot of threats. 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:46.880 That's a lot of threats. All this did well enough 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.760 that by nineteen ninety he was making five million dollars 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.800 a year off of his anti virus business. Pretty great. 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:57.120 My nineteen one, Far away from John McAfee in the 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.559 fabled land of Australia, another anti virus expert named Roger 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:03.880 Reordan discovered a unique new virus coded to deliver a 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:08.320 debilitating injection of code. On March six, Code that would 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:13.200 wipe out all infected computers discovered or create. No, he discovered. 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:15.719 I mean he he was a researcher. I haven't. I 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.800 haven't run in any Yeah, like he's it was his 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.400 job was looking at stuff. This guy is not the scammers, 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:24.480 the scams coming in us. Maybe he was. I don't. 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.680 I don't know anything about that. I'm also suspect of him, 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.960 But go ahead, because he's the Australian lazy. Listen, you 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.240 never know what's going on down under exactly because it's 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.360 down under, so you can't see it. That's what makes 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.920 them so shady. Anyway. Yeah, uh so Reordan named this 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:43.360 virus he had found Michael Angelo, not because it was 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:45.400 a work of art, but because March sixth was Michael 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.680 Angelo's birthday. Now, the Michael Angelo virus was not actually 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:50.560 a big deal. It had a bunch of flaws that 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:52.840 made it not super dangerous. It hadn't been coded well, 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:54.880 so left to its own devices, it would have made 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.440 almost no impact. But John McAfee read about this virus 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.520 and he knew that there his potential in just its name. 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.800 Because Michael Angelo. That's like a Hollywood virus. Oh yeah, 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.560 that's a very sexy virus. Yeah, you can imagine someone 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:10.360 explaining that virus to like Bruce Willis and then having 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.560 to go punch people to stop it. Right, Yeah, that's 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:15.880 exactly what it is. It's just Bruce Bis or Liam 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:22.960 Neeson nick chopping people neck chopping for a whole movie. Yeah. Yeah, 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.040 you got a solid ninety minutes out of that five 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.160 or six secrets. Probably never shoots anyone, Okay, he beats 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:32.040 everyone's ass individually. No, he's guns aren't allowed in his 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:34.880 hands because you know, I had half of like a 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:36.960 Chuck Norris style joke there, and I just lost it. 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.800 Lazy damn. That's a solid Chuck Norris style joke, though, 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.320 Yeah you could. You've got the pieces. Yeah, someone ad 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:47.560 put it together tweet it to us. Yeah. So John 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.320 McAfee started claiming, based on nothing really, that the Michael 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.840 Angelo virus was going to disabled five million PCs when 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.840 it started, and that was a lot of in the nineties, right, right. 0:15:58.080 --> 0:15:59.960 Isn't this like the era where the computers look like 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:04.400 a ghosts, where like it was like green, Yeah, everything's 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.120 green and there's like giant the monitors. Way more than 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:11.040 our television student told us any thing about virus expecting 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.040 but you're gonna tell me. Patrick Swayzy and the Ghost 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.080 we really go come back and active ship hand in 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:20.880 it could strangle you from your monitor. Whoopie Goldberg said, 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:25.760 Win Dangerer. This was right around the time that Whoopi 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.640 Goldberg started that movie next to a fake Tyrannosaurus where 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.080 they were both cops. Great moment in pop culture history. 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:34.120 A lot of people forget that movie, but they shouldn't. 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:37.680 It was called Teddy Rex and it was amazing. Kidding, No, 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:40.560 it's a real movie. It's a real movie. It was 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.520 somewhere sometime in the nice anyway. Yeah, as you just said, uh, 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:46.880 this was in the early nineties. Nobody knew anything about 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.320 computers or viruses and stuff, so everyone just kind of 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.200 like took McAfee's word for this. He was on TV. 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.760 He was on TV. He was like the nation's number 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.000 one viru antivirus expert. That's what people had called him, 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:00.840 just because nobody else was talking talking about it, because 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.320 he was the only he was the only one. Imagine 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:06.840 getting to just be the expert by deepa because nobody else. 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.040 Oh yeah, it's amazing. That's the best way to make 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.359 a shipload of money. Yeah, and yeah he uh, he 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:14.720 nailed it right place at the right time. I'm gonna 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.080 read a quote from a two thousand twelve article from 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:21.000 the website Naked Security. Thousands of PCs could crash by Friday, 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:24.080 screamed USA Today. Deadly virus set to wreak havoc tomorrow 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:26.520 was a headline in the Washington Post. Meanwhile, the Los 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:30.119 Angeles Times declared painted scary. So this is how like 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.480 everybody's covering this thing. Like John McAfee talks up the 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.280 Michaelangelo virus and then everybody's freaking out about how it's 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:39.760 going to disable all these computers and crash the economy. 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.919 CNN sent a film crew to McAfee's offices because they 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.919 wanted to like them us. They were hoping that like 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.639 they'd be getting thousands of calls and everybody running around 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:53.600 typing and yeah, I hope that McAfee hired crisis actors. Uh, 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:57.679 he actually kind of did. Oh, not quite that, but 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:01.000 he released a special anti virus program built solely around 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.919 Michael Angelo. But since it was actually really easy to 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:06.240 scan for this virus, he made the program scan a 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.919 bunch of unnecessary files, so it took like ten times 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:11.080 longer than it needed to because he wanted them to 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:14.480 feel like it was Yeah, maybe I got it's taken 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:19.840 so long. So McAfee had initially claimed, as I said, 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:21.760 that the virus had hit as many as five million 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.640 machines um. The estimate went down to one million by 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.640 like March second Nino, and then a couple of days 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.200 later it was any McAfee said it was anywhere between 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.560 fifty thousand and five million computers. So he starts revising 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:39.600 down the estimates. People by his product. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:42.560 it's a it's it was a grift um. And you know, 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.960 when Michael Angelo actually activated, there was only very few computers, 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.320 like like I think a few hundred, maybe a couple 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.680 of thousand, but like not a significant number got hit. 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.920 It didn't really do any damage. But that didn't actually 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:57.000 matter because John McAfee had succeeded in drumming up enough 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:59.679 fear about viruses that every major company had to have 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.440 anti virus software on its computers, and they all wound 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:05.119 up using McAfee because he was the guy talking about 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.600 this ship. In October of nineteen two, his company went 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:11.560 public and raised forty two million dollars in its first round. 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:16.160 By nine, McAfee's personality and showmanship had made the adults 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:17.600 in the room decide to edge him out of his 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.399 own company. He left, cashed out his stock and wound 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:24.080 up with around a hundred million dollars. Personality and showmanship, 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:27.200 so he was coked up and drunk acting a fool. Yeah. Yeah, 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:29.879 there are apparently sex contests in the office and stuff 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.879 like that. Sex contest, people sucking on desks, like fucking 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.080 on desk. I hope you can imagine me a soldier 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:40.719 boy right now. Like contests? What that's how you know? 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:43.520 You really while in network? Like yeah, yeah, if there's 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.359 a sex contest at your anti virus company, your anti 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:54.920 virus company, irony of that, Like a lot of people 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:58.400 got clamity at the anti virus company. Anti virus company. 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:01.080 I thought you were going to anti I was company. Yeah, 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:07.280 but it was some sex contest. I'm kidding, I don't virus. 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:09.920 But it was clearly one of those things where the 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:12.040 company was when it was suddenly when it was worth 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:13.560 a huge amount of money, and like a lot of 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.280 companies relying on it. The adults that God brought in 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:18.680 were like this guy is a fucking nut. We can't 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.200 we can't have them running this business. Let's when other 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:24.360 people have money involved, and it's like, Okay, come on back, 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:30.760 little you're crazy, you're a huge lie, you're a gigantic problem. 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:35.639 You're not even doing miles. You're gonna commit felonies. We 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:37.840 can't have you around here like you're doing kinds of 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.320 crimes where other people got to go to jail with you. 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:42.120 You know, you do a Trump level cross where it's 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:43.879 like a whole consortition with people who got to go 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:47.360 to jail at the same time. Yeah, So McAfee's out. 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.000