Mike Lynch, who has died aged 59 within the wreck of his yacht, was typically described as “Britain’s Invoice Gates”. It was an enormous exaggeration, however Lynch may declare two parallels with Gates: he developed world-leading know-how (in his case in machine studying or AI) and, in contrast to so many UK scientists, he realized tips on how to flip it into business success.
Such was this success that his firm, Autonomy, was valued at $11bn when he bought it to Hewlett-Packard in 2011, however the fall-out from the sale would come to overshadow his technological achievements, and result in a nationwide debate in regards to the circumstances wherein UK residents could also be extradited to the US.
Lynch based Autonomy with two companions in 1996. Its software program enabled a pc to go looking large portions of numerous data, together with telephone calls, emails and movies, and recognise phrases. He advised the Impartial in 1999: “The best way our know-how works is to have a look at phrases and perceive the relationships as a result of it has seen numerous content material earlier than. When it sees the phrase ‘star’ within the context of movie, it is aware of it has nothing to do with the phrase moon. As a result of it really works from textual content, it may possibly take care of slang and with totally different languages.”
Autonomy turned a number one firm in Cambridge’s Silicon Fen cluster and established a base in San Francisco. “We knew we had to achieve success in America. It was a query of ‘Go West younger man, go to San Francisco and be ignored.’ They discovered it laborious to consider that anybody from England may have something highly effective.” Lynch discovered what he known as the “cold-hearted schmooze” to safe funding robust.
However Autonomy’s software program, enabling computer systems to determine and match themes and concepts, and type mammoth quantities of information, was licensed to greater than 500 prospects, together with the US State Division and the BBC. It was listed on Nasdaq in 1998 and on the FTSE 100 in November 2000, though its worth of £5.1bn could be halved inside a couple of months within the collapse of the know-how increase and accusations of over-promotion. In 2005 it purchased a significant US rival, Verity, for $500m.
Lynch’s profile rose with it. In 2006 he was appointed OBE for companies to enterprise and the next 12 months joined the board of the BBC. In 2011 he turned a member of the federal government’s Council for Science and Know-how, and was named probably the most influential individual in UK IT by Pc Weekly. In 2014 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.
Although quietly spoken, he had a fame for toughness, colored by a liking for James Bond, which led to Autonomy convention rooms being named after Bond villains, and a tank of piranha fish in reception. (Lynch claimed it belonged to certainly one of his enterprise companions.) Challenged about an organization tradition the place folks had been “a little bit fanatical”, he replied: “This isn’t the place for you if you wish to work 9 to five and don’t love your work.”
Born in Ilford, east London, to Michael, a firefighter, and Dolores, a nurse, and introduced up in Chelmsford, Lynch gained a scholarship to the unbiased Bancroft’s college in Woodford Inexperienced, earlier than taking a pure sciences diploma at Cambridge, the place his PhD in synthetic neural networks, a type of machine studying, has been broadly studied since.
A saxophone participant and jazz lover, he arrange his first enterprise, Lynett Techniques, whereas nonetheless a pupil, to supply digital tools for the music business. Later he would attribute some lack of listening to to adjusting synthesisers for bands. He quoted his personal expertise to spotlight the difficulties of discovering funding for startup companies in Britain. He lastly negotiated a £2,000 mortgage from one of many managers of Genesis in a Soho bar.
Lynch’s subsequent enterprise got here out of his analysis. In 1991 he based Cambridge Neurodynamics, specialising in computer-based fingerprint recognition. Then he established Autonomy.
The head of his success appeared to return in October 2011 when Autonomy was bought by Hewlett-Packard for $11bn and Lynch made an estimated $800m. Shortly afterwards he established a brand new firm, Invoke Capital, for funding in tech firms, and he and his spouse, Angela Bacares, whom he had married in 2001, invested about £200m in Darktrace, a cybersecurity firm.
However simply 13 months after the Autonomy sale, HP introduced an $8.8bn writedown of the belongings “resulting from severe accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations” which it claimed had artificially inflated the corporate’s worth. The authorities investigated, and whereas the UK Critical Fraud Workplace discovered inadequate proof, in 2018 the US authorities indicted Lynch for fraud. Quickly after, Autonomy’s chief monetary officer, Sushovan Hussain, was discovered responsible of fraud and sentenced to 5 years in jail.
In March 2019 HP adopted up with a civil motion for fraud in London. Lynch spent days within the witness field because the civil motion stretched over 9 months. It resulted in January 2022 with the decide ruling that HP had considerably succeeded, however that damages could be a lot lower than the $5bn that they had claimed.
In the meantime the US authorities sought Lynch’s extradition on prison expenses of conspiracy and fraud. Despite representations by senior politicians and accusations that the US authorities had been trying to train “extraterritorial jurisdiction”, a district decide dominated in favour of extradition.
An utility for judicial evaluation and an additional enchantment failed, and in Could 2023 Lynch was flown to the US to be held below home arrest in San Francisco, with the prospect of a 25-year sentence.
Charged with wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy, on 18 March this 12 months Lynch pleaded not responsible, alongside his former vice-president of finance, Stephen Chamberlain. On 6 June, they had been discovered not responsible of all expenses. Chamberlain died after being hit by a automobile on 17 August.
Lynch declared that he wished to get again to what he cherished doing – innovating. However he had little alternative to take action. He quickly launched into a voyage to have fun his acquittal, with household, colleagues and enterprise associates. It ended with the sinking of his yacht, Bayesian – named after the 18th-century mathematician, Thomas Bayes, whose work on likelihood had knowledgeable a lot of his pondering – in a violent storm off the coast of Sicily.
Lynch is survived by his spouse and elder daughter, Esme. Their different daughter, Hannah, was additionally on board the Bayesian.
