The tragic misfortune of Mike Lynch

Twice I met the tech tycoon Mike Lynch, once a decade or so ago and again this year, shortly after he returned from his fraud trial acquittal in California. On the first occasion, I followed him as a speaker at a corporate conference in, of all places, the National Football Centre in Burton-on-Trent. He was the star of the show and we exchanged barely a nod. In those days – after he sold his software company Autonomy to Hewlett Packard of the US for $11 billion, but before his career was overtaken by HP’s allegations that Autonomy’s accounts were fraudulent – he had a reputation for arrogance in business which did not help him rally support against the extradition process that eventually took him to a San Francisco courtroom.

But at the second encounter – a private party in London – he was chastened, chatty and instantly likeable. I hoped to get to know him better but now I never will.