British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was among seven people who died after the luxury superyacht Bayesian sank off the coast of Sicily early on Monday morning The 59-year-old is known for founding Invoke Capital and Autonomy Corporation and had been in the headlines after he was cleared of charges in a high-profile fraud case. He was on the boat, named Bayesian, which sank in bad weather in the early hours of Monday near the Sicilian capital Palermo . Once dubbed the “British Bill Gates”, Mr Lynch and his wife Angela Bacares were valued at £852m in 2023 by the Sunday Times Rich List.
Born in Ilford, east London to his Irish mother a nurse from County Tipperary and his father a firefighter from County Cork, he won a scholarship to the independent Bancroft’s school in Woodford Green at the age of 11. He then went to Cambridge University and started his first business while studying for a PhD in signal processing and communications research. The company, Lynett Systems, produced audio products for the music industry including electronic synthesisers and samplers.
His doctoral thesis, meanwhile, is reportedly one of the most widely-read research pieces in the Cambridge University Library. In 1991, he started his second business, Cambridge Neurodynamics, which specialised in fingerprint recognition and reportedly sold its machines to South Yorkshire Police, among others. Autonomy grew out of that company – but its success vastly overshadowed what came before.
The firm was a pio.