Billionaire dies in yacht sinking Who was Mike Lynch?
He has been compared to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. A yacht trip off Sicily cost him his life. The sale of his software company in 2011 got Mike Lynch into trouble.
23.08.2024, 00:00
23.08.2024, 04:56
dpa
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- Tech tycoon Mike Lynch has died in the sinking of a yacht off the coast of Sicily.
- Lynch, who was described as a visionary, made his fortune when he sold Autonomy, the software manufacturer he co-founded in 1996, to Hewlett-Packard.
- However, the deal turned out to be a disaster for the Briton. He was accused of falsifying balance sheets in order to complete the sale.
A Silicon Valley case had damaged his reputation as an icon of British inventiveness, and he died in the sinking of a yacht off Sicily. The death of 59-year-old Mike Lynch was confirmed by the Italian coastguard on Thursday.
In 2011, Lynch had sold Autonomy, the software manufacturer he co-founded in 1996, to Hewlett-Packard for eleven billion dollars. However, the deal turned out to be a disaster for him: he was accused of falsifying balance sheets in order to get the sale over the line. The then HP boss Meg Whitman dismissed Lynch. Lynch was only acquitted of criminal charges in the USA in June.
"Instrumental figurehead of the technology scene"
Before his dispute with HP, Lynch was regarded as a visionary - some described him as the British version of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Lynch was a science and technology adviser to two prime ministers. He also founded the venture capital firm Invoke Capital, which invested in the AI platform Luminance.
Lynch was "an instrumental figurehead of the Cambridge technology scene", said his friend Brent Hoberman, the former managing director of the travel website lastminute.com. Lynch had helped British entrepreneurs bring their inventions to a global audience, Hoberman told the BBC.
Extradition to the US
Lynch had been extradited from the UK to the US to stand trial on charges of massive fraud against HP. Lynch vehemently denied any wrongdoing. He said that he was being made a scapegoat for HP's blunders. He maintained this position during a two-and-a-half month trial in San Francisco earlier this year. The trial ended in his favor and Lynch announced that he would return to the UK and devote himself to innovation again.
Although Lynch escaped a possible prison sentence, there were still civil proceedings against him in London. HP largely won this case in 2022. The compensation to be paid in the case had not yet been decided before Lynch's death. HP has demanded four billion dollars. Lynch had earned more than 800 million dollars from the sale of Autonomy.
The US magazine "Forbes" estimated Lynch's fortune at one billion dollars in 2015. In the current year, the British newspaper "The Sunday Times" put Lynch and his wife Angela Bacares' fortune at 500 million pounds.
Cold pizza late at night
Lynch studied mathematics at the University of Cambridge in the UK. His company Autonomy developed a search engine that could scan emails and other internal business documents to find important information more quickly. In the months leading up to the deal, HP valued Autonomy at $46 billion, according to evidence presented at Lynch's trial.
Two conflicting accounts of Lynch's character were presented at trial. The prosecution described Lynch as a tough boss who was obsessed with achieving revenue targets, even if it required fraud. The defense, on the other hand, portrayed Lynch as an entrepreneur of integrity and a technology nerd who enjoyed eating cold pizza late at night while thinking about ways to innovate.
