The Lynch family said they are “devastated” and “shocked” following the Baysian superyacht tragedy but are “comforted and supported by family and friends.”
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, 59, was confirmed dead by local authorities on Thursday after the yacht he was holidaying on sank in the early hours of Monday morning.
Divers retrieved the last missing body from the rubble on Friday, presumably that of his 18-year-old daughter Hannah. Her mother and Lynch’s wife, Angela Bakales, survived the disaster.
A family spokesman said in a statement on Friday: “The Lynch family are devastated and shocked but are comforted and supported by family and friends.
“Your thoughts are with all those affected by this tragedy and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Italian Coast Guard, the emergency services and all who assisted in the rescue. Our only request now is that your privacy be respected during this time of grief.”
Condolences have since poured in to both families.
“We have lost one of our brightest stars”
Miss Lynch “lit up the classroom with her energy, passion for learning and sheer intelligence,” said John Mitropoulos-Monk, head of English, who teaches at Latimer High School in west London.
“I have never taught anyone who combined extraordinary intellectual ability with warmth and enthusiasm like Hannah,” he said on Friday.
When she arrived at Oxford she asked each member of staff to “thank her individually and give her a hug”.
Family friend Patrick Jacob said he had “never met anyone like Hannah” and described her as “charming, incredibly intelligent and with an unquenchable thirst for life and knowledge”.
“We have lost one of our brightest stars who had such a promising future. Her loss is unbearable”, he added.
Miss Lynch’s school friend Katya Lacey said she had a “beautiful soul”. “Being with Hannah has made me whole and happy. She is the most special friend anyone could ever ask for and I will always love her,” she said.
Andrew Cantor, a close friend of Lynch’s father and a former colleague, described Lynch as “the most brilliant mind and most compassionate person I have ever known”.
“There is no other British technology entrepreneur of our generation who has had such an impact on so many people,” he said.
Sushovan Hussain, a student friend and former colleague of Lynch, also knew Morgan Stanley chairman Jonathan Bloom, his wife Judy and Lynch’s lawyer Chris Morvillo, who also died in the yacht sinking.
He said Mr Lynch’s death “left a void in my life that will never be filled”, adding that it was “tragic beyond words”.
‘Great neighbours’
Ruth Lee lived next door to the couple in Suffolk for 15 years.
On Thursday she described them as “great neighbours” and said the tech tycoon “never took advantage of his position” and was “very friendly and down to earth” despite his wealth.
“He always made an effort to remember your name, ask about your partner and your children. They were great neighbours from the start – very friendly, down-to-earth people.
“He came from a very humble background and has used his wit and intellect to the best of his ability to build a truly great company and develop amazing, groundbreaking technology. He was always very moral.” He was very generous with his charities and never took advantage of his position.”
She described his death, coming so soon after his legal problems were over, as “the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“The purpose of this trip to Italy was to bring his friends and family to say thank you,” she added. “That makes it even more tragic.” Prosecutors allege he deliberately inflated the value of Autonomy, a company he founded in 1996 and sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2011, and he spent a year under house arrest in San Francisco before being acquitted by a jury on 15 fraud charges earlier this summer. He always denied any wrongdoing.
“A brain the size of a planet”
David Tabizel co-founded Autonomy with Lynch and the pair remained good friends. He described him as an “amazing human being” and “the smartest person I’ve ever met in my life”.
“He had an incredible range of personality traits you rarely see in the UK,” he said.
“The UK tech scene didn’t exist before him.
Tabizel spoke of Lynch’s “inner child”, how he “loved video games”, how he had a life-size train in his garden at home and how he animated cartoons. He had a dog in his office and they both recorded its “barking”.
On his own legal troubles Tabizel said he “never heard him lie or exaggerate” and was “interested in the truth, in cutting through the noise”.
“I’ve heard he’s accused of manipulating bounty money. It was extraordinary. It just wasn’t Mike. I loved this man and he should be honoured as a hero.”
David Yelland, Lynch’s former PR adviser and former editor of The Sun, paid tribute to him in a post on X. Please remember Angela and her surviving daughter Esme as they struggle with this unimaginable loss.
“We have lost a man who was abandoned by his country and his fellow countrymen at a time when he needed it most – when he pleaded for help against an unjust US extradition request – and who suffered the most unfair and cruel fate.”
Yelland said he spoke to Lynch just before he set sail on the yacht.
He also described him as “a dreamer who dreams not just for himself but for all who know him, who have worked with him and who have invested in him.”
He added that the entrepreneur “has exciting plans to do even more for the country he loves.”
Lord Brown, former chief executive of BP and now chairman of BeyondNetZero, said Lynch was “the man who catalyzed a generation of British deep tech entrepreneurs.”
“His ideas and personal vision have made important contributions to science and technology in the UK and around the world. We have lost a man of great calibre,” he wrote.
“It was a privilege to know him”
He described him as “a visionary and original thinker with a passion for building businesses” and added that “sadly there are too few of his kind in the UK”. The Academy of Engineering, where Lynch was a former trustee, donor and leader, said it was “deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Mike Lynch”.
They sent their condolences to his family, adding: “Mike became a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2008, but we have fond memories of the active role he played in the past as a mentor, donor and former trustee. He was also one of the founding members of the Enterprise Committee.”
A spokesman for technology trade body TechUK said:
“We offer our deepest condolences to all the family and friends affected by these tragic events,” the paper said.
Lynch’s Autonomy software was based on Bayesian statistical inference, which is where his family’s ill-fated yacht was named.
The software’s global success earned him the reputation of being the “British Bill Gates”, and it allows companies to sift through vast amounts of data more efficiently.
His Cambridge thesis is considered one of the most widely read research papers in the institution’s library.
When Home Secretary Priti Patel approved an extradition order to send him to the United States for trial in 2023, there was a massive outcry from politicians and business leaders.