Mike Lynch will leave a ‘hole that cannot be filled’, neighbour says as business world pays tribute

Published

1 year ago

August 22, 2024

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One of Mike Lynch’s neighbours has described him as “generous, humble and full of integrity”, telling Sky News he will “leave a hole that cannot be filled” after his death was confirmed on Thursday.

Mr Lynch, 59, was confirmed dead by local authorities on Thursday after the Bayesian superyacht he was on with his wife and daughter sunk in the early hours of Monday.

Ruth Leigh lived next door to Mr Lynch and his wife Angela Bacares in Suffolk for 15 years.

She described them as “fantastic neighbours” and said the tech tycoon “never played on his position” and was “very friendly and down-to-earth” despite his fortune.

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“Even though they were wealthy and influential people there was never any airs and graces,” Ms Leigh told Sky News.

“He always went to the trouble of remembering your name, of asking after your partner or your children. From the very start they were fantastic neighbours – very friendly and down-to-earth.

“He’d come from a very ordinary background and through his own brains and intellect, he’d made a really great company and come up with some incredible ground-breaking tech. He was always very moral. He gave to charity very generously and never played on his position.”

She described his death so soon after the end of his legal troubles as “the saddest thing I’ve ever heard”.

“The whole point about this trip to Italy was taking his friends and family to say thank you. That’s what makes it even more tragic,” she added.

“Losing somebody so kind, compassionate, and full of integrity must leave a hole that cannot be filled.”

Mr Lynch was extradited to the US and spent a year under house arrest in San Francisco before he was cleared of 15 charges of fraud earlier this summer by a jury.

Prosecutors claimed he deliberately overstated the value of Autonomy, the company he founded in 1996, when he sold it to Hewlett Packard in 2011. He always denied wrongdoing.

His former colleague has told Sky News he had a “brain the size of a planet” and was a “lovely man”.

David Tabizel co-founded Autonomy with Mr Lynch and the pair remained good friends. He described him as a “remarkable individual” and the “brightest man I’ve met in my life”.

“He was a lovely man,” he told Sky News. “He had a remarkable set of personality traits that we rarely see in Britain.

“Before him there was no British tech scene. He showed us we can be world-class.”

Mr Tabizel told of Mr Lynch’s “inner child”, that he “loved video games”, had a life-size train set in his garden, and how they animated a cartoon dog for their office, for which they both recorded the “barking noises”.

Commenting on his legal struggles, Mr Tabizel said he “never heard him lie or exaggerate” and he was “interested in the truth… in cutting through the noise”.

“For him to be accused of manipulating his profits. It was an extraordinary thing. It just wasn’t Mike.

“I loved that man and he should be celebrated as a hero.”

David Yelland, Mr Lynch’s former PR adviser and former editor of The Sun newspaper, has paid tribute to him in a post on X.

He said: “All those that knew and loved Mike are thinking of Angela and their surviving daughter Esme as they struggle to come to terms with such unimaginable loss.

“We have lost a man who was failed in life by his country and his peers when he needed them most – as he looked for help in the unjust US demand that he be extradited – and he has then suffered the most unfair and brutal of fates.”

Mr Yelland said he had spoken to Mr Lynch just before he set sail on the yacht.

He also described him as a “dreamer of dreams not just for himself but for all those that knew him, worked with him or invested with him”.

The entrepreneur had “exciting plans to contribute much more to the country he loved,” he added.

His wife survived the disaster but their 18-year-old daughter Hannah is still missing.

Six people are now confirmed to have died on the yacht – Morgan Stanley chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy Bloomer, American lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, and on-board chef Recaldo Thomas.

Lord Browne, former chief executive of BP and now chairman of BeyondNetZero, said Mr Lynch was “the person who catalysed a breed of deep tech entrepreneurs in the UK”.

“His ideas and his personal vision were a powerful contribution to science and technology in both Britain and globally. We have lost a human being of great ability,” he wrote.

‘Privileged to have known him’

Sky’s Ian King said he “feels very privileged to have known and spoken with Mike Lynch over many years”.

He described him as a “visionary and original thinker with a passion for building businesses”. “There are sadly too few like him in the UK,” he added.

The Royal Academy of Engineering, where Mr Lynch was a former council member, donor, and mentor, said it is “deeply saddened to learn of the death of Mike Lynch”.

Sending condolences to his family, they added: “Mike became a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2008 and we have fond memories of the active role he played in the past as a mentor, donor, and former council member. He was also one of the inaugural members on the enterprise committee.”

A spokesperson for technology industry group TechUK said: “Mike Lynch was a hugely significant and pioneering figure in the UK technology sector.

“Our hearts go out to all of the families and friends who have been impacted by these tragic events,” they said.

Mr Lynch’s Autonomy software was based on Bayesian statistical inference – where his family’s ill-fated yacht got its name.

The software’s global success earned him a reputation as the “British Bill Gates” and enabled companies to trawl through huge swathes of data more efficiently.

His Cambridge thesis is thought to be one of the most-read pieces of research in the institution’s library.

There was huge outcry from politicians and business leaders when Home Secretary Priti Patel approved a judge’s extradition order for him to be sent to the US for trial in 2023.

Business

Nvidia beats expectations again in defiance of AI bubble fears

Published

10 hours ago

November 20, 2025

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Nvidia beats expectations again in defiance of AI bubble fears

The world’s most valuable company has reported another series of expectation-beating results, heading off fears of the AI bubble bursting for now.

Nvidia’s revenue reached $57bn in the three months to October, higher than Wall Street estimates and the company’s own guidance.

That’s up 62% on the same time last year, and has been described by the business as an “outstanding” quarter.

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A profit measure called earnings per share was also better than expected at $1.30.

It matters as Nvidia has powered the artificial intelligence (AI) boom through its computer chips, which are key parts in AI chatbots such as ChatGPT.

Nvidia has major tech companies as clients and acts as a good proxy for whether the tens of billions of dollars invested in AI is paying off.

Its chief executive, Jensen Huang, has been described as the Godfather of AI and watch parties were organised for those looking to follow the Wednesday evening announcement.

The company has been a massive beneficiary of the push to put money into AI, with its share price reaching stratospheric highs.

In October, it became the first worth $5trn (£3.83trn), about the size of the German economy, Europe’s largest, and double the UK’s benchmark stock index, the FTSE 100.

What’s been announced?

Revenue from data centres reached a record high of $51.2bn, more than £10bn higher than the three months previous.

The outlook is for continuing strong sales in the final three months of the financial year, as the company forecasts revenue will be roughly $65bn.

Demand for Nvidia products continues to surpass expectations, while the business is “still in the early innings” of AI transitions, its chief financial officer Colette Kress said.

Mr Huang said sales of its blackwell chips are “off the charts” and its cloud graphics processing chips (GPUs) are “sold out”.

Why it matters

Developing AI infrastructure, like the construction of data centres, has been a significant contributor to US economic growth, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP).

A faltering of AI expansion, therefore, impacts the US economy, the world’s largest, which in turn affects the UK and global economies.

Anxiety around the massive valuations tech companies have accrued, on the hope of AI revolutionising the world, is likely to be staved off by the results announcement.

A fall in these tech company valuations could have meant a drop in the value of pension pots or savings.

Just seven dominant tech companies, many of which have borrowed to invest in AI, make up more than a quarter of major US stock index, the S&P 500.

In the last year alone, Nvidia’s share price has risen more than 230%.

Some, including US trader Michael Burry, famous for being played by Christian Bale in the Hollywood film The Big Short, have effectively bet that Nvidia’s share price would fall.

Addressing the topic of an AI bubble, Nvidia’s founder, Mr Huang, said, “From our vantage point, we see something very different”.

What next?

Regardless of the figures released on Wednesday evening, significant market moves were anticipated, given the attention paid to the results and the significance of the company.

Nvidia shares rose as much as 4% in after-hours trading.

The results also boosted the share price of its chip-making competitors like Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices.

For now, the AI bubble remains intact.

Business

Budget 2025: Consumer confidence falls as speculation ramps up – but London mayor welcomes major rail investment

Published

15 hours ago

November 20, 2025

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Budget 2025: Consumer confidence falls as speculation ramps up - but London mayor welcomes major rail investment

Consumer confidence has tumbled amid rampant speculation about what the chancellor will announce in the budget, figures show.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) blamed “strong hints” from the government of income tax hikes for the public’s falling expectations of how much they’ll spend over the next three months – even as Christmas beckons.

While a planned increase in income tax rates was scrapped last week, Sir Keir Starmer has refused to rule out freezing income tax thresholds – which the Conservatives argue amounts to a tax rise by stealth because it drags people into paying higher rates even if their wages increase.

BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said months of uncertainty had “heightened public concern about their own finances and the wider economy”.

Consumer expectations for the state of the economy over the next three months have fallen significantly to minus 44, down from minus 35 in October, according to data from the BRC and Opinium.

Ms Dickinson said action was needed from Rachel Reeves to “bring down the spiralling cost burden facing retailers”, which she said would “keep price rises in check”.

Signs of ‘fragile’ recovery in jobs market

In slightly more encouraging news for Ms Reeves ahead of her statement next Wednesday, new research suggests the jobs market may be on the up.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation said the number of new job adverts last month was 754,359, up by 2.1% from September, taking the total to more than 1.6 million.

Ms Reeves’s decision to hike national insurance contributions for employers in last year’s budget was blamed for a slowdown in the market, and a rising unemployment rate.

The report said there has been an increase in adverts for medical radiographers, delivery drivers and couriers, and further education teaching professionals.

But it warned the apparent recovery was “fragile”.

Reeves set to back DLR extension

One man looking forward to the budget is Sir Sadiq Khan, who has welcomed reports that London’s DLR is set to be given funding for an extension.

According to the Press Association, the chancellor will back an extension to the Docklands Light Railway to Thamesmead at a cost of £1.7bn – unlocking thousands of new homes.

Thamesmead has been notoriously short of public transport links ever since it was developed in the 1960s.

The plan would see the line extended from Gallions Reach, near London City Airport, and include a new station at Beckton as well as in Thamesmead itself.

Sir Sadiq said the DLR extension “will not only transform travel in a historically under-served part of the capital but also unlock thousands of new jobs and homes, boosting the economy not just locally but nationally”.

It is also expected to unlock land for 25,000 new homes and up to 10,000 new jobs, along with almost £18bn of private investment in the area.

Business

Nvidia beats expectations again in defiance of AI bubble fears

Published

21 hours ago

November 19, 2025