I know I have the numbers. At least 10,000 people in the past few years have said, please run for president. Weird, it s truly weird.
— John McAfee, your newest 2016 U.S. presidential candidate, in an interview with Reuters. The founder of antivirus software company McAfee is the third presidential candidate with tech credentials: Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is among the many Republicans in the race. And Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig, who among other things founded the Center for Internet and Society when he was at Stanford, is running too. (But as Michelle Quinn wrote last month, Lessig has quite a unique plan for the presidency.)
Speaking of unique, back to McAfee, who says he wants to be president to return sanity to the government and because we are on the precipice… of the total collapse of society.
McAfee is concerned about government intrusion into people s lives. In his campaign announcement video, he says: I m protected by a government that invades my privacy so it can assure me that I am not the enemy it is protecting me from.
McAfee, 69, fled Belize three years ago after being named a person of interest in the death of a neighbor; police later said he was not a suspect. After hiding out in Guatemala, where he said he played the crazy card, he eventually ended up back in the United States.
Since then, McAfee has said he is broke. He has co-founded a tech-security incubator called Future Tense. He continues to believe people are after him. Earlier this year, he told USA Today he was tired of running, had settled down in Kentucky and was fully prepared to defend my turf — I have a security detail, guns and pit bulls.
Intel bought McAfee the company in 2010 for more than $7.6 billion. Last year, it renamed the software Intel Security, which John McAfee has said has become the worst piece of [software] on the planet.
Here s McAfee s official campaign announcement:
Photo at top: John McAfee listens to a question at the Fireside Chat with John McAfee talk during the C2SV Technology Conference + Music Festival at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose on Sept. 28, 2013. (LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group)
