Near Porticello, Sicily, a luxury yacht capssizes in a storm; British IT entrepreneur Mike Lynch is reported missing.
A luxury boat collapsed off the coast of Sicily early on Monday amid a strong storm, leaving one man dead and six people missing, including British software entrepreneur Mike Lynch.
The Italian coast guard reported that the 56-meter British-flagged yacht “Bayesian” was hit by heavy weather when it was anchored close to the port of Porticello. Witnesses stated that shortly before daybreak, the superyacht swiftly sunk.
Fifteen individuals, including Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife, and a one-year-old daughter, made it out alive. The cook on the yacht is thought to have died, and Lynch is still missing. Official disclosure of the identities of the deceased and missing has not yet occurred.
Who is Mike Lynch?
- Mike Lynch, a well-known British digital entrepreneur, is 59 years old and is sometimes compared to Bill Gates due to his noteworthy contributions to the tech sector.
- Drawing on his research at Cambridge University, he started Autonomy, the largest software business in the UK, and rose to prominence in the computer industry.
- In 2011, Lynch sold Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for a $11 billion sum; nevertheless, the transaction sparked legal issues, with HP accusing Lynch of deception.
- Lynch defended himself in court for over ten years, including at a criminal trial in San Francisco, where he was found not guilty in June following more than a year of house arrest.
- Lynch conveyed his satisfaction upon being found not guilty, saying he was “elated” to be exonerated of all allegations and insisted that HP handled the Autonomy integration improperly.
- The name of the boat had particular meaning for Lynch since Bayesian theory, a branch of statistics and probability theory, was the foundation of both his doctoral dissertation and the software that helped him amass his wealth.
