McAfee S-1

I really wonder who&#x27;s going to buy in to McAfee. Their original founder is outspoken against them, their primary product is built into every OS these days, and they&#x27;ve been selling off their brand trust in exchange for revenue. Their revenue growth with their current strategy is purely optimized for short term growth with catastrophic long term outlook.<p>They even say they don&#x27;t have a plan for what to do with their money. In their filing under &quot;Use of Proceeds&quot; they state their objectives with the funds are to<p>a.) pay back a previous loan<p>b.) &quot;the remainder for working capital and other general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of, or investment in complementary products, technologies, solutions, or businesses, <i>although we have no present commitments or agreements to enter into any acquisitions or investments</i>.&quot;<p>This really looks like a last-ditch effort to salvage the company and pay off a loan they couldn&#x27;t.

I work in security and let me explain why McAfee products are so commonplace in corporate environments, even when there are vastly better alternatives out there.<p>You want an AV product? Done You want a firewall product? Done You want central management? Done You want SIEM? Done etc etc<p>Are any of their products amazing compared to the alternatives? No! Do they integrate seamlessly with each other? No! Are they cheaper than alternatives? Probably not!<p>But.<p>They provide a solution for every checkbox. And it&#x27;s easy to convince management and auditors that you have done &#x27;the right thing&#x27; by using a well known brand. And this in turn gets pass marks from the auditors.<p>A specific note about integration between products, McAfee has a history of buying good security software companies and basically destroying them. The integrations usually &#x27;barely work&#x27; and after enough people complain and the original core devs have packed up and left, they basically scuttle the product.<p>Remember when &#x27;Foundstone&#x27; was a vulnerability scanner that was an actual alternative to Nessus and not the consulting arm of McAfee? I do and I&#x27;m still sad they gutted it.

<i>Side-note</i>; Anti-virus software is ironically quite invasive and can be harmful to your system.<p>They bury themselves deep into the OS and often access undocumented kernel API&#x27;s which can break the OS. In some cases they [1] betray your privacy in the name of security...<p>I guess it&#x27;s still popular because it&#x27;s often part of the bloatware on new PC&#x27;s and Laptops...<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=20703699" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=20703699</a>

It&#x27;s been 20 years since I vowed to uninstall McAfee (&amp; Symantec) software from every computer I could.<p>I&#x27;ve been pretty consistent at keeping that promise. Probably 1k+ uninstalls.

I guess it begs to be asked: why has McAfee decided to IPO now as opposed to any other time in the past few decades?

Shouldn&#x27;t the Risk Factors section include a paragraph about the risk, nay certainty, that the eponymous founder will tarnish the company&#x27;s brand by expounding on his outlandish activities (e.g. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;officialmcafee&#x2F;status&#x2F;1067415394279936000" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;officialmcafee&#x2F;status&#x2F;106741539427993600...</a>)?

Why on earth did Intel acquire McAfee in the first place is still a mystery to me. And I dont know how many times it has changed hand since, and now we are back to IPO.<p>I actually think Oracle would be a better fit for McAfee given their enterprise nature.

Many wireless carriers preload mcafee on android for free with updates. Who even knows if it catches bad android apps.

Wait, again? I had a friend who worked there the first time during the dot-com boom like 20 years ago. Crazy.

Cyber security is a complicated profession

Does McAfee ever do something that isn&#x27;t bad or worse?

Is this new?

Got to wonder what the ratio will be for cocaine purchased per share. This IPO looks like it&#x27;s headed for the Guinness Book of World Records, but I&#x27;d be curious to see how it stacks up with other IPOs. My bet is Uber is the overall #1, but if there&#x27;s one individual who could singlehandedly shoot McAfee to the top, it&#x27;s John McAffee. Less a man than a black hole for cocaine and prostitution, he&#x27;s going to be pushing those numbers to new records. The only exception to this is perhaps post-Grimes Elon Musk. Not sure to what extent those 2 are stimulating the economy but they&#x27;re certainly stimulating the economy for stimulants. On the other hand you have everyone else working at, what is by all accounts, a mature firm staffed with nerds working in a quiet sector.<p>At any rate, exciting news and I wish them the very best of luck.