John McAfee

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John McAfee (born September 1945) is a computer programmer and founder of McAfee. He was one of the first people to design anti-virus software and to develop a virus scanner. He was born in England and raised in Salem, Virginia. He received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Roanoke College in 1967, and he received an honorary doctorate from Roanoke College in 2008.

John was employed as a programmer by NASA's Institute for Space Studies in New York City from 1968 to 1970. From there he went to Univac as a software designer and later to Xerox as an Operating System architect. In 1978 he joined Computer Sciences Corporation as a software consultant. Later, while employed by Lockheed in the 1980s, McAfee received a copy of the Pakistani Brain computer virus and began developing software to combat viruses. He was the first to distribute anti viral software using the shareware business model. In 1989, he quit Lockheed and began working full time at his anti-virus company McAfee Associates, which he initially operated from his home in Santa Clara, California.

This company later became Network Associates, a name it retained for seven years until it was renamed McAfee, which remains today as one of the largest anti-virus companies in the world. John McAfee teaches yoga [1] and has written several books about yoga [2].

Other business ventures that he founded included Tribal Voice, which developed the first instant messaging program[3].