| Flying John McAfee |
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Page 1 of 6 Multimillionaire software designer John McAfee conquered the corporate world, but he left it behind to pursue his fortunes wherever the wind takes him 
We’re blasting through the heart of the New Mexican desert, accelerating full-throttle along a lonesome two-lane blacktop that stretches pin-straight to the horizon. I’m on the back of John McAfee’s Tanarg iXess speed machine, feeling the power in the base of my spine as the mesquite bushes on either side blend into green blotches. It’s like a quintessential balls-to-the-wall motorcycle moment, but only for another 2.5 seconds. When McAfee pushes forward on the bar in his hands, the triangular wing over our heads pitches up, and with a lurch the road and the desert fall away beneath us. We climb and bank, curving over the scrubland toward the canyon to the west, our shadow sending the jackrabbits below scurrying for safety.Welcome to John McAfee’s world. Literally: You’re welcome to it. If you happen to find the idea of zipping over a desert landscape at cactus-top altitudes at all appealing, you’re invited to come hang out in the New Mexico desert with John and his band of like-minded companions. He’s built a facility, in fact a network of facilities, to promote a sport that he all but invented and has decided is the most fun on the planet. This, to McAfee, is no small matter. Since amassing a megafortune through his eponymous antivirus software, and then another fortune with a follow-up tech venture, McAfee has chucked the world of business in favor of full-time fun. And to McAfee, fun is serious business. 
MEMBERSHIP Participation in the Sky Gypsies is by invitation only. (“We’re not trying to be exclusive, just cautious,” explains McAfee. “You’re putting your life in the other members’ hands while you are trekking.”) The process begins with a weekend trip to club headquarters i... John McAfee tends to take people by surprise. In my case, literally so. It was past midnight, and I’d spent the last three hours driving east from Tucson to the tiny hamlet of Rodeo, New Mexico. The turnoff from the highway to McAfee’s dirt road isn’t marked, so I made a couple of wrong turns before parking in front of what I assumed to be his house, the only one for miles. As I got out, a sinewy figure emerged from the darkness and shook my hand. “Hi. I’m John,” he said, in a butterscotch baritone. As he ushered me inside his modestly sprawling ranch house, I finally got a look at him. Dressed in jeans and running shoes, he sported a single earring and a tattoo that stretched halfway down his arm from beneath his white T-shirt. His deep suntan was set off against artfully mussed hair with frosted tips. He looked less like a 61-year-old millionaire tech icon than a rock-and-roll drummer who’d gotten lost on his way to the Sunset Strip. His maverick style notwithstanding, McAfee started out in life along fairly conventional lines. As a kid he rode his bike, played with his dog, and fished in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. When it came time for college he went to a small regional school and picked up a degree in mathematics, which led to stints cubicle-jockeying as a programmer for the Missouri Pacific Railroad and then Xerox. |
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