British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was trying to bounce back from HP fraud case before being lost at sea

British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was trying to bounce back from HP fraud case before being lost at sea Tech tycoon Mike Lynch, one of six people missing from a sunken yacht off Sicily, had been trying to move past a Silicon Valley debacle that had tarnished his legacy as an icon of British ingenuity. Michael Liedtke, The Associated Press Aug 19, 2024 12:33 PM Aug 19, 2024 12:50 PM Share by Email Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Print Share via Text Message FILE - British tech magnate Mike Lynch walks into federal court in San Francisco, March 26, 2024, (AP Photo/Michael Liedtke, File) Tech tycoon Mike Lynch, one of six people missing from a sunken yacht off Sicily, had been trying to move past a Silicon Valley debacle that had tarnished his legacy as an icon of British ingenuity. Lynch, 59, struck gold when he sold Autonomy, a software maker he founded in 1996, to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011 .

But the deal quickly turned into an albatross for him after he was accused of cooking the books to make the sale. The fraud allegations resulting in Lynch being fired by HP's then-CEO Meg Whitman and a decade-long legal battle. It culminated with him being extradited from the U.

K. to face criminal charges of engineering a massive fraud against a company that shaped Silicon Valley's zeitgeist after starting in a Palo Alto, California, garage in 1939. Lynch steadfastly denied any wrongdoing, asserting that he was being made a scapegoat for HP's own bungling — a p.