- British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was trying to bounce back from HP fraud case before being lost at sea.
- He had been trying to move past a Silicon Valley debacle that had tarnished his legacy as an icon of British ingenuity.
OUR TAKE
Lynch’s first decade at Autonomy led to steady growth and in 2006 he was awarded one of Britain’s highest honours, the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Before his entanglement with HP, Lynch was widely hailed as a visionary, a disaster that tarnished his legacy as an icon of British ingenuity. In the endless competition of business, it is always sad to see the fall of an industry mogul whose achievements will be the cornerstone of what follows.
— Iydia Ding, BTW reporter
What happened
This week, British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was confirmed as one of six people missing from a sunken yacht off Sicily. This news follows his appearance in other headlines, surrounding the sale of his company decades ago to HP.
Lynch, 59, sold Autonomy, the software maker he founded in 1996, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 for $11 billion. He was eventually extradited from Britain to face criminal charges of committing a massive fraud against a company that shaped the zeitgeist of Silicon Valley after it began in a garage in Palo Alto, California, in 1939.
Lynch vehemently denies any wrongdoing, claiming he was scapegoated for HP’s own mistakes – a position he maintained during jury testimony at his two-and-a-half-month trial in San Francisco earlier this year.
US Justice Department prosecutors called more than 30 witnesses to try to prove allegations that Lynch engaged in accounting fraud, bilking HP out of billions of dollars. The trial ultimately went in Lynch’s defence and Lynch was cleared of all charges in June.
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Why it’s important
Stemming from a civil case in London, HP had won big in 2022. Although he avoided a prison sentence, Lynch still faces a potentially large fine. In that case, HP sought $4 billion in damages. Before tangling with HP, Lynch was notorious for his vision that inspired his development as the British version of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
Lynch, who made Autonomy grow steadily in its first decade at the company, was awarded one of Britain’s highest honours, the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, in 2006. Before tangling with HP, Lynch was widely hailed as a visionary, a disaster that tarnished his legacy as an icon of British ingenuity.
In the endless competition of business, the fall of an industry mogul is always saddening. Taken together, Lynch’s life was a step forward in the history of the British tech industry, and his achievements will be the cornerstone of what follows.
