WEBVTT - McAfee Part 2: The Yogi 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:04.280 Jim Goal is an auctioneer based in Miami. He says 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:07.360 that one day in two thousand and nine, his phone rang. 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:11.760 The office called me and they said, John McAfee, don't 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:15.480 call him mccafee. He has called and has properties and 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:19.400 wants to speak with you. Well, I know who he 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.200 is because everyone was talking about anti virus. So I 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.680 was honored and humbled. Only months earlier, the stock market 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:31.160 had crashed and the American economy sank into a deep recession. 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.839 Unemployment hit ten percent. People who'd taken out loans on 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:39.280 homes they couldn't afford lost them. It was a manic 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.560 Monday in the financial markets. The now tumbled more than 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:46.559 five hundred points. We're in the midst of a serious 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.159 financial crisis. Lehman Brothers, a one hundred and fifty eight 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.840 year old firm, filed for bankruptcy, brought down by bad 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.880 mortgage investments. Lehman, which has twenty five thousand employees, will 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:03.240 be liquidated. Against this backdrop of banks or closing properties 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.920 and people being forced from their homes. John McAfee wanted 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:11.200 to offload two if he's vacation houses. They were in obscure, 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:15.360 hard to reach places. One of them in Hawaii had 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.959 been a leper colony in the eighteen hundreds. So that's 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:21.640 not a place where the cruise ships go. They have 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:24.520 like one flight in and Outamolakai. It's not like going 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:30.400 to Honolulu. And his properties in Rodeo were just north 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.160 of the Mexican border, and there would be mules going 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.760 through that area. He had guns in every corner of 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:40.280 his house. The border patrol was everywhere. You had to 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:42.880 travel far out of your way to reach those kinds 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.880 of places, and Jim says this was deliberate on McAfee's part. 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:51.760 So he was kind of reclusive, and he liked to 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:56.880 live well. He traveled the world, and he just wanted 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:00.320 to get out of the rat race of life. He 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:02.840 just wanted to get away from it all. McAfee was 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.440 so keen to get rid of his properties and quickly 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:10.240 that he handed over all responsibilities to Jim, no questions asked. 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:12.480 He says, I don't really want to be at any 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.680 of the auctions. So I said, well, I'll need powers 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:19.240 of attorney. He gave me either seven or eight powers 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.680 of attorney. And so when I went to Hawaii, I 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.600 sold his home there in Molokai and they would look 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.440 at me like, you have the right to sign this. 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.120 I said, here's the power of attorney. This is an 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:36.400 original copy. Once the houses were gone, McAfee wanted Jim 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:40.160 to offload other assets. He would say, can you sell these? 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:42.680 And he dumped like three or four hundred thousand dollars 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.920 worth of watches in my lap, Harry Winston eighteen carrot 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:51.440 white gold, full of diamonds, Patek Philippe, Rolex. He had 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.880 the best of the best. Why was McAfee trying to 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.280 get rid of everything at once? Jim says that McAfee 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.120 didn't even try to hide his reason. He told me, 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.200 you know, people were suing him right and left, so 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.800 now he had an unlawful death suit, so he was 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:10.360 he was just fed up. He said, you know, I've 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:14.960 got a blazon belize. You know I'm selling everything. And 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.040 I remember he said to me, there's no process servers 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.480 where I'm gone. Well delt into this wrongful death lawsuit. 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.079 Later in this episode, it involved an extravagant and dangerous 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:30.040 hobby flying ultralight aircraft at low altitudes, and Jim says 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.240 that to get away from that lawsuit, McAfee wanted to 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.960 not only offload all his properties, he also wanted to 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.960 appear to have squandered all of his money, like he 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:43.200 was just another person who had lost everything in the recession. 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:48.840 And so Jim found himself providing another service from McAfee. 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.520 I got a call from the New York Times. She 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.920 was a business writer. Her name was Jerry Fabricant, and 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.200 she said, Jim, I'm looking to do a story on 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:00.320 people that had a lot of money and then they 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.480 cannot blew up. Jim has an idea, So I called 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:08.080 up John. I said, John, I know you've had a 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.080 ton of money, and you still love a ton of money, 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:15.680 but you know you've had, you know, some pitfalls along 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:19.000 the way, and would you be willing to talk to 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:24.080 someone with the New York Times? And he says yes, 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:30.080 Oh my goodness, he was jumping for joy. In August 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.960 two thousand and nine, The New York Times publishes a 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:37.320 story headlined Rise of the super Rich hits a sobering wall. 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:41.720 Geraldine Fabricat reports that he's one hundred million dollar fortune 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.680 had dwindled to four million. She writes an additional article, 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.279 once the property is sold, there is no mention of 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.880 the wrongful dead lawsuit in either of the stories. Instead, 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:55.840 McAfee is said to be selling because he wanted to 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.120 spend more time in Beliefs because of its favorable taxes. 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.160 Jim says that McAfee didn't tell the reporter the whole truth. 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:07.000 He was certainly not in distress, and you know, it 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:08.920 was like, you know, a wink, and like I'm gonna 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:13.039 be just fine, meaning money wise, okay, with all these lawsuits, 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:17.560 the wrongful death and everything else. He liked the appearance 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:22.560 of losing a lot of money to kind of keep 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:27.279 people away from these lawsuits. You know that we're probably 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:31.240 asking for financial statements, asking for this, asking for that. 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:33.919 I think it was a little bit of a facade 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:39.240 that John liked. He knew how to play every opportunity. 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:44.200 McAfee actually wrote a letter to The Times, which was published. 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.760 Thank you, Geraldine for the publicity for my new Mexico auction. 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:53.000 You've done a good job. I spoke to the reporter 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.440 Geraldine Fabrican on the phone when I told her about 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:01.120 Jim Gold's suggestion that McAfee miss led her so she 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.719 could report that he had lost nearly all his money 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.880 to ward off lawsuits. She said she didn't know he 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.280 was being sued at the time. You're listening to Foundering. 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.599 I'm your host, Jamie Tarabay. In the previous episode, we 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.880 discussed John McAfee's invention of an anti virus software that 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:21.000 dominated the computer market and made a name for him 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:24.599 in the process, and two years later John sold most 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.560 of his shares and walked away with reportedly a hundred 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.839 million dollars in hand. He would spend the next two 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.480 decades largely out of the public eye, and his vast 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:38.000 riches make him even more unaccountable for his behavior than 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:42.120 he was in his early life. McAfee builds massive estates 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:47.360 in remote, far flung places throughout the country. He's physically isolated, 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.040 he's insulated by his money, and he begins to embrace 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:57.760 increasingly indulgent, reckless rule breaking that eventually costs lives. We'll 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.760 tell you more about McAfee's descent into lawlessness after this 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:24.480 quick break. John McAfee had exhibited impulsive behavior throughout his 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.960 adult life, but he was emboldened by his increasing wealth 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.800 and position to push boundaries even further. When we were 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.760 interviewing computer programmers who knew McAfee in the nineteen eighties. 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.480 They talked about his early interest in computer viruses, but 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.120 several of them also wanted to highlight that there was 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.640 another thing he was just as obsessed with at the 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:49.240 same time. You know, probably the biggest thing was when 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:53.320 he wanted me to start putting together sex parties. But 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:55.280 one day out of the blue he called up. I 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.200 still remember this day. My wife said, Hey, you know 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.840 this guy John McAfee's on the phone that Roger Grimes. 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.040 Roger was one of the analysts helping John McAfee crack 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.880 computer viruses. The two of them had a professional relationship. 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:12.080 McAfee would send Roger a virus. Roger would disassemble the virus, 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.520 analyze it, write a report, and send that back to John. 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:18.800 Roger said he looked up to McAfee. He was only 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.440 twenty two years old and starting out in the industry, 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.200 and he was so excited to get the call. He 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.480 was hoping for a permanent job in McAfee's company, but 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:29.800 he never expected to be asked to help with this, 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:32.360 And so John was calling to tell me that he 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.920 had this great idea and that he wanted he wanted 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.920 to get people tested for AIDS and you'd get like 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.720 a driver's license looking thing that would talk about whether 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.320 or not you had AIDS or not. And if you 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.960 didn't have AIDS you could go to these club parties 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.920 he put together that were really swinger sex parties, and 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.360 he said, Hey, I'm starting one in California. I would 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.240 like you to start one in New York City. Roger 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.760 says this was in nineteen eighty eight or eighty nine. 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:02.920 There was an epidemic of AIDS at the time. Up 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.000 to ninety percent of people who contracted the disease died. 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:09.800 Scientists were trying to understand how it was transmitted or 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:13.160 how it affected people, and fear of AIDS was rampant. 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:15.960 I remember as soon as he said the idea to 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:17.840 me that I was kind of put off. I'm like, 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.360 is it even legal? And you know, if you get 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.120 a test that you don't have AIDS, you know, does 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:26.040 that mean you don't have AIDS when you're at the 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:28.280 party later on? And how? And I don't think the 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.920 tests were very accurate at the time, and I just 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.520 you know, it was just seemed kind of slimy, weird. 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:36.920 So as he was super excited, he was like, Okay, 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:38.600 I need you to follow up on this. I just 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:42.400 completely blew it off. Roger says McAfee was single minded 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.960 about this and chased him relentlessly. I mean for months, 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.959 he is just calling me on stop about how far 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:51.560 along I'm getting in, you know, trying to open these 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.960 swinger sex club things, and I'm doing nothing. So I'm 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:57.960 ghosting him. And eventually, you know, remember, you know, one 0:09:57.960 --> 0:09:59.480 time he had called, my wife had picked up the 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:01.160 phone and she it is John McAfee, and I'm like, 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:02.960 I don't want to talk to him. Just don't you know, 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:04.480 I don't want to talk to him. Like so it 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.360 definitely turned and from that, you know, he stopped sending 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.640 me work, stopped talking me. In the years since, McAfee 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:16.680 bragged on social media about his sexual conquests, about having 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:21.160 multiple partners, and about seeing sex workers. But Roger says 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.680 that this business idea was off putting an offensive to 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.400 many of the people who knew about it. I think 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:31.200 John McAfee and his sexual proclivities are fairly well known, 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:33.480 and I think that he just saw this. He was 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:35.680 being an entrepreneur and he saw a need and he 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.760 was putting together a new business, and you know, but 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.200 every single person, at least that I know, when we 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:46.120 talked about it. It was just kind of like wiged Ow. 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.800 If starting a swinger sex club is one sign of 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:54.520 how McAfee defied social norms, another was his relationship with women. 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.680 To tell that story, we have to go back in 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:01.480 time to the mid seventies. When John McAfee was working 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:06.960 as a programmer. His employer reassigned him from California to Cincinnati, Ohio, 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.560 where he met a teenage girl named Barbara dep Key, 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:16.319 and both of us took the bus downtown, and so 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:20.920 I met him on the bus and he just came 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.400 up to me and asked me out. I guess I 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.800 don't remember exactly, but I was young, you know, I 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:32.400 was like seventeen or eighteen. Barbara dated John from nineteen 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.440 seventy four to seventy seven. She said he was around 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.320 thirty years old when they got together, fresh over his 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.280 breakup from his first wife. Friend. Yeah, he was eleven 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:46.160 years older, and so I did go to his house 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:51.920 with him. You know, we went out, and we actually 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.000 got on very well right away, and I ended up 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.000 moving in with him. She remembers what drew her to him. 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:00.800 He had beautiful green eyes, and he had this voice 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:06.199 that was just mesmerizing, and he was very handsome. Women 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:09.880 just felt I don't know what it was, some magnetism 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:14.120 that he had. It was just very strange. They soon 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:18.360 began traveling together. They went to Mexico, Belize, and then 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:21.400 McAfee got a job with Siemens in Germany and she 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.240 went with him. She said she posed as his wife, 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:27.360 although they weren't married at the time. They had a calm, 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:33.160 domestic life with one constant, nagging interruption. It was so normal, 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:35.920 you know. My life with him was just so normal. 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.000 And we had lunch, and you know, I would make 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:40.760 dinner for him. He went to work and then he 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:42.400 would come home. But the whole time he has gone 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:44.160 at work, I would worry, like, okay, he was he 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.079 fucking down, you know? Or it is he affecting a 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:50.760 secretary or whatever. This was something that Barbara slipped into 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:54.800 conversation so casually. I was shocked. She said that John 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.560 was constantly cheating on her. He was always in teresting 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:04.520 other women. So I never trusted him ever. And so 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.960 like if we'd go to a restaurant, he could be 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.719 in the back hall with the waitress fucking her in 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.319 the bathroom. He's awful. He was awful about that kind 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.560 of stuff. But I wasn't willing to give up the 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.560 other thing for that at that point. And I you know, 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.640 we would talk about it, but he would, I believe, Yeah, 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:25.560 that was our worst that was the worst thing. He 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.200 really would cheat on me all the time. I couldn't 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:32.000 even have a friend. Actually, if I had a friend, 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.640 he would be in bed with her the next day. 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:38.760 It's amazing how when we were together that women would 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:43.240 just like fallen his spell and sleep with him or 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:45.640 go away with him or you know. It was just amazing. 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:51.640 This experience changed Barbara. It made her neurotic, suspicious. Well, 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:53.440 he tried to hide it, but I would spy on him, 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.280 Like he'd leave the house with his underwear on right 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.080 and come back with him on backwards or inside out, 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.200 or the bed was messed up if I was gone 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.559 or i'd come home, I'd find things that I knew, 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.720 you know, underwear and whatever. Eventually, she said she was 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.640 fed up with the cheating and she broke up with McAfee. 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.840 When I finally left him, I was like so upset 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.400 about the whole thing, and torn up. You would not 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.040 believe how much I'd loved him. I actually I really 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.560 really loved John a lot, and I still do because 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.000 he wasn't anything to me, like he wasn't anybody else. 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.640 Decades later, in conversation, Boba still gets emotional when she 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.760 talks about John. She said their relationship was singular, and 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:42.240 she also stressed how young she was and how inexperienced 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.040 she was when she first met him. I was young 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:50.040 and sweet and innocent, and he treat me. He just 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.080 treat me like a little princess. I can't. He was 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:59.480 my protector, He was my best friend. He was my lover. 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:06.600 John's first wife, Fran, was also eighteen when she met him. 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.760 She also mentioned their age difference and her own relative inexperience. 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:16.800 And he just slowly like a spider throwing a web 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:22.200 around its prey. My family never liked him, and it's 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:26.560 because they could see. They could sense something that I 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:31.080 could not see at my age, and I was I 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:37.520 was the definition of naiblity. It struck me that, like Barbara, 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:41.480 Fran believes that her relationship with McAfee was unique, that 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:43.800 though he went on to be with many other women, 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.600 there was something about their particular love that was irreplaceable. 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:54.760 There are things about John Bett you know, special to me. 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:59.000 For example, it's like I always knew he loved me. 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.920 He used to tell me, you're the thing that grounds me. 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:09.680 There's nobody else in my life that grounds me. Even now, 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.680 decades later, in some ways, he's still a good person 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.240 in their eyes. Yet in conversation with us, both Fran 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.520 and Barbara said that they felt controlled and manipulated by John. 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.680 I think this goes back to how young and impressionable 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:26.280 they were when they were his partners. We're highlighting mac 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:29.160 of his treatment of women because it speaks to from 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:32.120 very early on in his life, his sense of entitlement, 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.320 of doing whatever he wanted, with whoever he wanted, with 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:38.880 little to no regard for the consequences or the feelings 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.800 of others. He displayed the sort of behavior that would 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:45.480 be considered toxic, and yet he was revered even by 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.760 the very women he was cheating on. As we've heard 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.000 constantly in our reporting, when people think you're a genius, 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:55.600 you can get away with anything. We'll be right back. 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.399 In nineteen ninety four, John McAfee made a call to 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:11.080 a tax consultant my name is David les Bronze. I 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:17.800 am a Canadian who deals with immigration, tax, family law 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:24.840 solutions for wealthy individuals and families globally, including Americans who 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:29.800 are looking to give themselves some options with regards to 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:37.200 international movement and potentially leaving permanently the US tax system. 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:41.480 David Lesperance said John mccofee contacted him after seeing an 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:45.720 article in Forbes magazine about super rich Americans abandoning their 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:49.840 citizenship to avoid paying US taxes. So he said, I 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:55.919 want to pay as little tax as possible. Said, okay, 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:59.000 but I want to have a certain type of lifestyle. 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:03.639 So you know, clients, I occasionally will get a client 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:07.120 to say, well, you know, move me somewhere where there's 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:12.000 no tax and no divorce courts or no no litigation warriors. 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.000 I said, no problem, will moving to a rock in 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:18.240 the middle of the ocean. But you know, pack a 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:20.920 gun because within six months, either you're going to want 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:22.600 to kill yourself or your family is going to want 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:24.359 to kill you, like oh no, no, no, I want 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.919 you know this lifestyle, etc. Etc. So it's coming up 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:35.960 with a plan that is actually livable. It was striking 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.800 to me that as soon as nineteen ninety four, McAfee 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:41.680 was already laying the groundwork to leave the US for good, 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.800 even at a time when things were going well for him. 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.840 In fact, free of his first company, he set about 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:51.960 launching more businesses. He created an instant messaging platform that 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:56.000 looked a lot like AOL Instant Messenger. Actually, he lifted 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.400 so many features that AOL sued his company for copying 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:02.639 one chronic component, the Buddy List. This week on the 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.200 Computer Chronicles video to lephony on the Internet, we'll show 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.720 you the hardest thing in online chat. Pow Wow. Yes, 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.800 it was called pow Wow, made by McAfee's company, Tribal Voice. 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.399 Here it is featured on the PBS show Computer Chronicles 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.760 in nineteen ninety nine. Million free download, free download. This 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.199 is sort of the text version of powell that's correct. 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.080 On the left hand side, here you see what we'll 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:29.160 call a traditional chat, AOL type chat room where people 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.520 are talking to the keyboard. Pow Wow was panned by critics. 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:37.159 The interface was clunky and unattractive, Yet McAfee reportedly managed 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.960 to sell the company for seventeen million dollars. Those days, 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.160 he was investing money in small tech firms and more property. 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.919 He bought a house in Santa Cruz. He purchased several 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:52.000 acres on Molokai Island in Hawaii, homebase for most of 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:56.160 those early years. After he left McAfee and associates was Colorado. 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:00.119 McAfee bought two hundred and eighty acres. He turned the 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:03.960 estate into a yoga retreat, reportedly pouring over twenty million 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.639 dollars into it. It was a beautiful, beautiful property. It 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.040 was in the shadow of Pike's Peak. It was at 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:13.919 nine thousand feet high altitude. You drove up to the 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:16.639 property and he had his main home. It was a 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:19.600 little lake, and right in the edge of it was 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:23.720 a wood burning sauna that was quite large, which I 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.320 had been in. And then there was a like a barn, 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.840 a couple of guest houses, and a beautiful yoga studio. 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:35.240 Robbie Raman is an executive coach who lives in Minneapolis. 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.080 In the early two thousands, he found ads from McAfee's 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:43.800 Colorado Yoga center and visited several times. He says people 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:46.960 could come and go. That was very open the times 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:48.679 I was there, I mean people were just there, some 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:53.040 other sort of yogis or students who were studying or caretakers, 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:57.399 yoga teachers just being there cooking meals and seemed to 0:20:57.400 --> 0:20:59.040 be you can just sort of go wherever you wanted. 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.800 As far as Rabie could tell, the entire operation was 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:07.080 funded personally by John McAfee. I never paid for any 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.160 of my trips out there. For the initial yoga workshop, 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.200 I paid, but I just paid my studio. I never 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:16.639 paid John anything, and then I made two other trips 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:18.760 out to his property. I never paid. I made a 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:22.040 donation to the teachers who supported me. They never asked 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:25.440 for a dime, and I just paid as an offering. 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:28.280 I just assumed he had had a career and made 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.280 some money, and it was looking to deepen his understanding 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.760 and share what he knew. McAfee taught yoga and meditation. 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:37.800 When Rabbie went to the yoga retreat for the first 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:41.159 time in two thousand and three, he was personally instructed 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:44.440 by McAfee. He would join us for breakfast and swing by, 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:46.800 and I got to do with the breathing classes that 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:51.160 he would lead, and I actually learned med meditation technique 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:55.760 from him. Nothing struck me as weird or odd or 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.639 so fit into other practices I had but he just 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:02.199 had a very specific approach for me, given where I 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.639 was in that moment. I never got the sense he 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:07.880 was any kind of enlightened being or anything like that. 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.080 I was never I have never looked at human beings 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:14.520 in that way. John went on to put out several 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:18.280 books about yoga that list him as the author. Robbie 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:20.920 said he had a few copies, which again he never 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:23.760 paid for. He ended up giving them away to friends. 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:26.840 Two people who were close to McAfee told us he 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:30.720 didn't write these books. Here's Barbara again. He was a 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.840 bullshitter and he made up things, and people just fell 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:38.159 for because he was like, you know, mesmerizing, and the 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:39.960 way he talked and looked at you. I think people 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:42.640 just wished him. And so then it turned out there 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:45.440 he had these books that he wrote. He didn't even 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:49.800 write them. They were all like, you know, yoga books 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:53.800 and spiritual things. And I had one of them signed 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:56.119 by him. I even called him on that one time. 0:22:56.160 --> 0:22:58.119 I said, that is such bullshit, John, that is not 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:01.360 your words. The books are still for sale on Amazon 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:06.399 and some of the reviews of Pretty Brutal. One reviewer wrote, wow, 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:09.320 he just copied and pasted this whole book from other 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:15.600 yoga books. McAfee would later dismiss the books as garbage 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:19.119 and said he was embarrassed by them. Over the course 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:24.199 of these years in relative isolation, McAfee's eccentricities began to deepen. 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:26.960 With the yoga retreat, he set himself up as a 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:31.440 spiritual leader, as a guru, even though his qualifications were 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:35.480 sketchy at best, and he succeeded in recruiting people. He 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:38.600 drew so many to join him in the mountaintop retreat 0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:42.200 where they lived under his generosity. It didn't matter who 0:23:42.240 --> 0:23:45.440 they were or why they were there. There were always 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:50.120 other people there and hanging around, and he allowed people 0:23:50.160 --> 0:23:55.080 to stay there and just very generous in that respect. 0:23:56.760 --> 0:24:02.600 I would characterize it as strays. There were strays all 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:07.480 the time. That's Joy Athanasiu, an attorney who represents McAfee's daughter. 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:12.120 Joy is also McAfee's daughter's childhood friend. She first met 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:14.959 John McAfee when she was still a teenager, and she 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:20.480 remembers visiting the Colorado property. I think that John had 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:24.080 some you know, he had some narcissistic qualities quite frankly, 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:27.919 and I always had like an entourage around him. And 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:32.000 people really elevated to him to this cult like status. 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:37.680 The Colorado used was significant because they were the beginning 0:24:37.760 --> 0:24:41.080 of a pattern. This was the first time John McAfee 0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:44.000