One man died, and six people, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, are missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily early Monday during a violent storm.
The 56-metre British-flagged yacht “Bayesian” was anchored near the port of Porticello when it was struck by severe weather, according to the Italian coast guard. The superyacht quickly sank just before dawn, eyewitnesses reported.
Fifteen people, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, and a one-year-old girl, managed to escape. The deceased is believed to be the yacht’s chef, while Lynch remains unaccounted for. The names of the missing and deceased have not been officially released.
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Who is Mike Lynch?
• Mike Lynch, 59, is a prominent British tech entrepreneur, often compared to Bill Gates for his significant contributions to the tech industry.
• He founded Autonomy, the UK’s largest software company, based on his research at Cambridge University, and became a leading figure in the tech world.
• Lynch sold Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $11 billion in 2011, but the deal later led to legal disputes, with HP accusing him of fraud.
• Lynch spent nearly a decade defending himself in court, including facing a criminal trial in San Francisco, where he was acquitted in June after being under effective house arrest for over a year.
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• After his acquittal, Lynch expressed his relief, saing he was “elated” to be cleared of the charges and maintained that HP mishandled the integration of Autonomy.
• The yacht’s name held special significance for Lynch, as his PhD thesis and the software that built his fortune were both rooted in Bayesian theory, a statistics and probability theory.
(Inputs from Reuters)
