Security kings living two separate lives

Paolo Del Nibletto

12 years ago

The founder of McAfee John McAfee is in trouble again. This month is proving to be a challenging one for a person credited with creating anti-virus software.

To give you a sense of how important John McAfee’s contribution to the IT industry just read the following stat: Security makes up about a-third of the entire software market.,

Any way you want to slice it John McAfee started what is today a multi-billion dollar industry that has 12 major vendors dueling it out each and everyday for market share.

Recently the police in Belize raided John McAfee compound; yes he lives in Belize. The police there have listed John McAfee as a “person of interest” in a murder case. Another American expatriate was found dead at John McAfee’s island home just off the coast of Belize in Central America. No one has been charged yet, but John McAfee decided to escape anyway. He is now in Guatemala City. In a published report, John McAfee said he’s afraid of the police in Belize and is trying to evade them for months. The Prime Minister of Belize has described John McAfee as paranoid, even bonkers. So how did John McAfee, who at one time was worth more than $100 million, get to this point in his life?

In a word, “drugs.” Yes that’s right, drugs. John McAfee maybe an eccentric rich man but his fall from grace comes from a very old foe.

John McAfee started to produce new kinds of medicine from jungle plants in Belize. He may have had good intensions all along and the fact that he was rich and powerful enabled him to build a big lab. This got him into further trouble by the anti-drug enforcement unit of Belize who earlier this year raided his lab and arrested John McAfee for unlicensed drug manufacturing and possession of an unlicensed weapon.

When you compare John McAfee life to his chief rival at Peter Norton the only thing that are similar is that both took a decade long hibernation where the basically disappeared.

Norton is popular because most of the software he produced is still branded Norton from Symantec.

Peter Norton today lives a pretty rich life. He is a backer of Acorn Technologies and something called eChinaCash. Peter Norton is also on the board of directors of the Museum of Modern Art in New York city and has a collection of more than 200 piece of modern art. He and his family get together during the Christmas season to produce a unique piece of work that is given out to family and friends. One of those pieces was created with the help of record producer Brian Eno of Queen and David Bowie fame.

There is one more similarity the security kings have that I forgot to mention. Both are eccentric. You already know about John McAfee. Peter Norton did something that would be considered eccentric about 13 years ago. He spent six-figures on letters written by J.D. Salinger, the author of Catcher in the Rye. These letters were written to Joyce Maynard when she was 18. Salinger had an affair with Maynard. What did Peter Norton do with these letters? He gave them back to Salinger.

Two quick hits before I go. Xplornet Communications Inc., one of Canada's providers of rural broadband services, has appointment of Allison Lenehan as President. John Maduri, CEO since 2005, has announced his plans to pursue other business endeavours in 2013.

And, Chris Rogers, the one time editor of CDN rival (if you want to call them that) CRN Canada has joined the darkside and will become a PR Practitioner for Strategic Ampersand in Toronto. I wish my fellow Hot Sauce Committee member the very best.