John McAfee and Lance Armstrong – Poor Decisions Lead to Loss of Trust

It’s rather sad how the general public views those who make poor decisions in life – or is it?

The decision that McAfee Antivirus founder John McAfee has made to engage in illegal drug activity, engage in an underage sexual relationship in Belize and wanted by Belize officials in connection to the murder of his neighbour was his alone. The decision that Lance Armstrong made to continually betray the trust of the general public by apparently lying about his PED use during his amazing bicyclist career have led to the loss of several sponsors, being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and losing control of the Livestrong Foundation he created.

Let’s be real for a second – nobody should pity these fools.

Both McAfee and Armstrong made the beds they lay in today for one simple reason. They chose to make poor decisions in life – they were never forced to make these choices. However, the tragic part is that now, the general population has forever linked their personal life-style choices with the companies and foundations they worked hard to create in the past.

As soon as the allegations of illegal activity of McAfee Antivirus founder John McAfee surfaced, several thousand consumers of the McAfee antivirus software expressed concern over the reliability of the program that John McAfee created several years ago. Although the engineers and developers are different and not related to McAfee, they still use his basic engineering design in today’s programs.

With Armstrong, as soon as the story continued to break, he not only lost all of his long-time sponsors, but also several investors and donors to his Livestrong Foundation pulled their funding for 2013 – simply because they could not be associated with Armstrong or the foundation he created. Even after Armstrong stepped down from the foundation Chair, companies and individuals are continuing to separate themselves from the foundation.

McAfee’s lack of integrity over the years has surely contributed to the jam that he’s in right now and is impacting the reliability and integrity of the McAfee Antivirus Software he developed many years ago.

By hiding out in Belize and running away from several governments who are actively searching for him, McAfee is proving his guilt – just as Armstrong did by not responding to his drug doping allegations. In the eye of the general public, being labelled as a cheater, a liar, a drug dealer, a pedofile, or murderer is often enough to convict somebody in the court of public opinion.

And in the case of both Armstrong and McAfee, their decision to hide has impacted the lives of millions of people who once trusted them – and the brands they developed. Success in life is a wonderful thing, but if the road to it is paved with poor morals and values, you just may find yourself in terrible situations like Armstrong and McAfee are facing today.