Who is Mike Lynch, UK’s ‘Bill Gates’ missing in superyacht sinking?

Mike Lynch, a UK tech entrepreneur, was celebrating his acquittal in a fraud case on the superyacht Bayesian when it suddenly sank off the coast of Italy on Monday (August 19), killing one person and six others reported missing.

The 56-metre British-flagged yacht “Bayesian” was anchored near the port of Porticello when it was struck by severe weather, according to the Italian coast guard. The yacht was owned by Lynch’s family and had 22 people on board when it sank just before sunrise.

The superyacht quickly sank just before dawn, eyewitnesses reported. Fifteen people, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, and a one-year-old girl, managed to escape. The deceased is believed to be the yacht’s chef, while Lynch remains missing.

More from Explainers

How ChatGPT is becoming everyone’s BFF and why that’s dangerous This Week in Explainers: How recovering from Gen-Z protests is a Himalayan task for Nepal

But who exactly is Mike Lynch? Why is he called UK’s ‘Bill Gates’?

Early life of Mike Lynch

Though he is dubbed to be UK’s Bill Gates, Lynch’s life has been very different than that of the Microsoft founder.

Born on June 16 1965, Lynch is the son of a nurse and a fireman, and was raised near Chelmsford in Essex. Earlier, he has been quoted as saying that his parents instilled in him an appreciation of the value of education.

He studied physics, mathematics and biochemistry at Cambridge University, eventually specialising in adaptive pattern recognition. A report in The Guardian says that his doctoral thesis is reportedly one of the most widely read pieces of research in the university library.

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

Ghaziabad woman dead, pilgrims attacked in bus… How Nepal’s Gen-Z protests turned into a living hell for Indian tourists

Were bodyguards involved in Charlie Kirk’s shooting? The many conspiracies surrounding the killing

In 1991, he helped create a company that specialised in using computer-based detection and recognition of fingerprints. It was five years after this that he created his tech firm, Autonomy. Its software was used by companies to analyse huge caches of data and partly owed its efficacy to Bayesian inference, a statistical theory devised by the 18th-century statistician, philosopher and Presbyterian minister Thomas Bayes.

The rise and rise of Mike Lynch

Autonomy soon became a success, which also saw it joining Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 of top UK-listed companies. In 2006, he was awarded an OBE for services rendered to enterprise.

Years later, he joined BBC’s board as a non-executive director. Moreover, in 2011, he was appointed as a science advisor to then Prime Minister David Cameron. Lynch then sold Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $11 billion and from the money that he netted from the sale he established tech investment firm Invoke Capital.

Lynch’s firm invested in the creation of British cyber security company Darktrace in 2013, where he held a seat on the board until earlier this year.

Interestingly, Lynch had a fondness for the British super spy James Bond, which was reflected in his offices. He named conference rooms at his companies after Bond enemies such as Dr No and Goldfinger. Moreover, according to a report in The Guardian, he also had a piranha tank in the atrium of Autonomy’s office, in a nod to Bond’s You Only Live Twice.

Lynch’s legal battle with HP

Lynch’s sale of Autonomy to HP made headlines across the world. But it also brought for the tech entrepreneur a huge legal headache. A year after purchasing Autonomy, the US giant alleged it had discovered “serious accounting improprieties” at the UK company.

In 2018, US prosecutors brought charges against Lynch, accusing him of artificially inflating the company’s value. They alleged he had concealed the company’s loss-making business reselling hardware, and also accused him of intimidating or paying off people who raised concerns.

He spent the next few years in court defending himself, locked in some of the biggest legal battles in corporate history. In 2022, Lynch lost a civil fraud case brought by HP in the UK, during which it was said that the businessman exerted control over Autonomy’s former finance director, Sushovan Hussain and that it was inconceivable that Autonomy’s founder was unaware of the fraudulent practices alleged to have taken place at his company.

But through it all, Lynch maintained his innocence, saying that HP was trying to pin blame on him for having “buyers’ remorse”. In simply terms, he said that the US giant was regretting how much it had paid for but that was their choice and, he insisted, it was neither conspiracy nor fraud.

It was on June 6 that he was acquitted of all charges. Notably, he told the BBC in August that he felt he was only able to prove his innocence in the US due to his wealth. “The reason I’m sitting here, let’s be honest, is not only because I was innocent… but because I had enough money not to be swept away by a process that’s set up to sweep you away.”

Lynch and the Bayesian

Mike Lynch had taken friends and family on board the 56-metre yacht named Bayesian to celebrate his acquittal, reports The Telegraph when tragedy struck. The UK newspaper reports that Lynch had gathered guests from Clifford Chance, the legal firm, and Invoke Capital, his own company, after being cleared in June of fraud over the multi-billion-dollar sale of Autonomy.

Those on board the Bayesian recount that a violent storm had struck without warning.

While divers continue to search for those missing, investigators have also begun work on trying to find out why the Bayesian sank when other ships in the vicinity remained afloat. The yacht had the world’s tallest aluminium mast at almost 250 feet.

While Lynch is said to be missing, his wife has been rescued from the wreckage site. However, one of Lynch’s daughters, aged 18, is also understood to be among those missing after the yacht sank.

With inputs from agencies