John McAfee, Bitcoin and resurrection | Crypto Stories Ep. 18

I knew they would come for me and then they
did. [Police]: This is your final warning! I did so well on the job at NASA. Not just normal NASA, but their Institute
for Space Studies at Columbia University in Manhattan. There I was assigned the data reduction of
the world's first weather satellite TIROS. And that's also where I first learned that
there was a thing called computer security. Because they were terrified that the Russians
or the Chinese will get access to the data Because no one else had any weather satellite,
no satellites at all. And it had been transmitted dating for years
in the analog form. And so they said: "How do you deal with this?" I go: "F*ck me, I don't know." But I was 25 at the time and at 25 you'll
take on any project. And after a year, I had designed a system
to reduce the data into a not just a manageable Form, but to an intelligible form. With NASA I understood: "Oh, people were concerned
about other people accessing data. Well, how interesting." I got a degree in mathematics, got my bachelors. I went to Louisiana State, then moved to Virginia
Polytechnic, working on the masters. I decided to take the summer off, but I got
a job at General Electric. I didn't know what it was about. They were looking for mathematicians. I went to a training program for three months,
I didn't tell them I was going to go back To school, and it was the most technical and
still the most technologically complex and Intense of all computer disciplines. That means that you have a computer control
it, a moving system in real time. If you're off by a fraction of a millisecond,
you might destroy a $2 million steel metal Road. However, after three months, I realized: "Jesus,
this is what I want to do!" That's where I really learned what computers
really were. People know me from McAfee. But no, that was not my greatest success,
that was some trivial thing. It was my future things which I did NOT attach
my name to that taught me and made me All of my money.

I got into it in 2011 by peer pressure. My friends literally forced me to read the
Satoshi's whitepaper. And when I had done that, I saw immediately
the beauty and the power of the mathematics, And I saw that this was potentially world-changing. And it just turned out to be. When I started, I was the chairman, the CEO
of MGT, the world's sixth largest Bitcoin Mining company, $800 million in valuation. What happened is Bitcoin went sky-high and
after the quartering it sank next to nothing. The New York Stock Exchange the following
day delisted us. That's what they do. We had to fold the company, I left. That was their shot over the bow. A warning saying: "You better shut up or we'll
destroy you." Well, that just made me mad. You have to understand, I have half a dozen
doubles around the world. Many of them are just like me. They take more drugs than necessary and they
drink themselves into a stupor. Listen, I mean, I'm wanted by five world governments,
including the United States, the most horrific of them. First of all, they tried to collect me in
America when they convened a grand jury. I found out about it beforehand. So we left the following day to Florida. We picked up our yacht with Janice, myself,
four large dogs and seven of my staff, and Sailed away, went to the Bahamas. We were thumbing up our nose 90 miles from
America, sunning on the beach and just having fun. I knew they would come for me and they did. [Police]: This is your final warning! We went to Cuba. We were in Cuba for 2 months. So the Cuban government said: "Listen, Mr.
McAfee, we regret but the US government has Requested, that we return you to America. However, we were disinclined to do so. But, Mr. McAfee, you understand you are now
a serious problem to us if you remain in this country. You have 72 hours to get out of the country." Now, we decided to go to the Dominican Republic.

We told no one about it. We got to the Dominican Republic, pulled into
dock, and we were arrested before we could get off the boat. And they said: "Mr. McAfee, I'm sorry, but
we have to ship you back to America." I said: "Well, that's not legal. I didn't come from America, I came from Cuba." The people who operated illegally was the
head of the police force and the head of the Armed forces. So I outed those people. They both had secret bank accounts. The deposits that came in to these accounts,
the dates, the amount and from whom, and the Withdrawals in cash totaling many times their
annual salary. And believe me, I could bring down the US
government. I haven't released anything. However, if anything happens to me — absolutely. I've got dead man's switches everywhere. Within a day of my disappearance or untimely
death, there will be every newspaper in the World pouring through more documents that
they could, that they could have 100 people Pour through in 100 years. So no, it will be chaos. But right now I just want to be able to live
happily, try to make a better world for my Children and grandchildren. And fish from time to time. I would not change a single second of this. I would not change my jail time, I would not
change hiding in the jungles from police while The bullets were flying over my head, I would
not change a single thing.