Mike LynchA British software program tycoon who was as soon as well-known as a high tech chief — solely to spend greater than a decade defending himself in opposition to accusations that he masterminded one of many greatest frauds in Silicon Valley historical past — died Monday after his a yacht sank off the coast of Sicily. He was 59.
An official within the Italian metropolis of Palermo confirmed on Thursday that Mr Lynch’s physique had been recovered by divers.
Twelve visitors and 10 crew members had been on board the yacht Bayesian when it sank throughout a heavy storm. Mr Lynch’s spouse, Angela Bacares, was rescued, together with 9 crew members and 6 passengers. Six our bodies have been recovered and one particular person continues to be lacking, Mr Lynch’s daughter Hannah Lynch.
Mr. Lynch’s demise got here two months after his demise acquitted in San Francisco federal court prison fraud prices associated to the $11 billion sale of his Autonomy firm to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. The takeover, extensively seen amongst buyers as one of the worst deals in historyled HP to accuse Mr. Lynch of fraud.
US Attorneys Mr. Lynch accused him with greater than a dozen fraud and conspiracy prices associated to the deal, with a possible sentence of about twenty years in jail.
On the day a British decide discovered him responsible of civil fraud within the matter in 2023, the British authorities – regardless of Mr Lynch’s repeated appeals – accredited his extradition to america. He was locked up in a townhouse below 24-hour surveillance, on his personal dime. Throughout his home arrest, his mom Dolores and brother Richard died.
The allegations tarnished the status of Mr. Lynch, who at one level was often known as Britain’s Invoice Gates.
Michael Richard Lynch was born on June 16, 1965, to Michael and Dolores Lynch, working-class immigrants from Eire, and grew up outdoors London. He attended non-public college on a scholarship and graduated from Cambridge earlier than founding Autonomy in 1996. The corporate helps purchasers analyze unstructured information to uncover hidden insights about their companies.
By 2011, Autonomy had change into one among Britain’s best-known expertise firms, with its major base typically known as ‘Silicon Fen’, a reputation derived from its location on the southern fringe of the Fenland, a marshy space in jap England.
Mr. Lynch has change into a celeb in British expertise circles. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the most effective scientific associations within the nation; adviser to David Cameron, Prime Minister on the time; and a board member of the BBC.
Autonomy attracted the eye of HP, which sought to rework its fortunes by shopping for a robust software program firm and ended up paying 60 % above the British firm’s market worth. However buyers and analysts balked on the deal, and HP minimize the worth of the deal by $8.8 billion. HP fired the chief government who led the deal, and shortly after Mr. Lynch himself.
Meg Whitman, the previous eBay chief who took over HP, accused Mr. Lynch and his aides of “critical accounting improprieties” that misled her firm concerning the well being of Autonomy’s enterprise.
However Mr. Lynch — armed with the tons of of thousands and thousands he raised from promoting Autonomy — employed a military of attorneys to show that HP was conscious of the corporate’s practices. His workforce additionally stated that Mr. Lynch had largely delegated the day-to-day monetary operations of the corporate.
Mr Lynch’s trial started in San Francisco in March, lasted three months and included reams of usually dense inside paperwork. After two days of deliberations, jurors discovered him and Steven Chamberlain, Autonomy’s former vp of finance who confronted comparable prices, not responsible on all counts. (Mr. Chamberlain was fatally struck by a automobile Saturday whereas fleeing, his lawyer, Gary S. Linzenberg, stated Monday in an emailed assertion.)
After the sentence, Mr Lynch stated in a press release: “I sit up for returning to the UK and getting again to what I like most: my household and innovation in my area.” He later returned to his properties in London and Suffolk.
Whereas defending himself in opposition to HP’s allegations, Mr. Lynch grew to become a enterprise capitalist, founding Invoke Capital to spend money on firms together with cybersecurity supplier Darktrace.
Extra just lately, he has begun to give attention to synthetic intelligence analysis, together with the methods wherein the expertise may also help the listening to impaired.
Survivors embody his spouse and one other daughter, Esme.
Kirsten Noyce contributed analysis.
