When it comes to one of the most popular software developers ever to exist, John Mcafee, he has definitely showed us how we should not deal with public relations. This is definitely a reality that we can all learn from.

What do I mean? Just keep on reading and I will show you exactly what I mean.

It all starts with an artice in Fast Company…

John Mcafee was being interview by a writer of Fast Company, a very reputed business publication. Fast Company published an article which hinted that John Mcafee had moved to Belize in order to get out of the reprecussions of a pending lawsuit against him.

John Mcafee basically said that he had planted an inaccurate quote with the writer to try and fool the people that were suing him. John Mcafee has admitted to journalists in the past that he has told fabricated stories in the past to bring him and/or his company out of hot water.

Here’s John’s side of the story, which was pulled from the Fast Company comments.

“I have been plagued by emails from angry people who demand to know how I could do something so heinous as misdirect a reporter from a respectable publication… A man came into my home under false pretenses with the explicit intent of publicly promoting an existing private lawsuit against me. Do you seriously believe that I have a moral obligation to passively co-operate in my own hanging? If you do, then I respectfully disagree. Fast Company wanted an exposé. I provided them one. The end result was no less accurate than any exposé, just more ridiculous.”

Now, this may not seem like the way that IT company execs would deal with something like this in today’s modern era, but you can easily see John Mcafee comes from the earlier breed of techs.

Here’s another quote that was allegedly given to Fast Company from John Mcafee.

“As to the comment about Belize being a hard company to collect judgments in — of course I made it. It’s true. I live with lawsuits. They go on for many years. the psychological play between plaintiffs and defendants is extreme. You do everything within your power to psych out your opponent. It’s good to have them know that collection may be difficult. But that is a long way from assuming someone will in fact not pay is a judgment is issued.”

While it may seem like a good way to trick the people whom are in the middle of a lawsuit with you, it’s not good for your rep as it makes you look like a shady type of person.

If you are trusting the security of your computer in the hands of John Mcafee, you may want to think twice. What if he stretches the truth about the stability of his software? After all, if you did it once, you will probably do it a second and third time.