237. The extraordinary story of Britain’s first tech titan

The Rest Is Money

Goalhanger

Politics, Business, News

3.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Who was Mike Lynch and how did his tech companies make him a billionaire? How did he avoid prison in an American fraud trial when he’d only given himself a 0.4% chance of winning the case? Why did his tragic death spark conspiracy theories around the world? Katie Prescott, technology business editor at The Times, joins Robert and Steph to discuss the extraordinary life and death of a British tech billionaire, on whom she’s based her latest book: The Curious Case of Mike Lynch. Email: the⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠restismoney@goalhanger.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@TheRestIsMoney⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@TheRestIsMoney⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@RestIsMoney⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://⁠⁠⁠goalhanger.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to The Rest is Money with me, Steph McGovern.
0:15.0	And ho, ho, ho from me. Merry Christmas.
0:17.9	I mean, that was exceptional. The enthusiasm in that ho-ho-ho.
0:23.7	Yeah, we've got a bit of a Christmas treat for you today for this episode.
0:28.7	So this is an episode where I think you'll want to sit with a cup of hot chocolate and a
0:35.3	mince pie or a brandy, whatever takes you fancy, because this
0:38.5	is a staggering story that we're going to deliver to you today. So this is about Mike Lynch,
0:45.3	Robert, isn't it? So just remind everyone who he is. Yeah, so as you say, this is a sort of
0:52.2	podcasting glorious technicolor about a sort of larger than life individual who had a very tragic death on his super yacht in Italy.
1:04.2	And the reason why this was absolutely front page news was because really of his life story as a tech
1:15.1	entrepreneur, as somebody who was sued by one of America's most famous tech companies
1:22.3	who accused him of ripping them off. This was a Hewlett Packard who sued him.
1:29.0	And there was an amazing amount of courtroom drama.
1:32.8	He thought he was going to go to prison.
1:34.5	He didn't go to prison.
1:36.3	And then literally weeks after getting his life back on track
1:39.7	was this extraordinary tragedy that didn't just lead to his death, but the death of some of his
1:46.7	family and friends. And then there was another extraordinary coincidence involving a completely
1:52.9	separate death of one of his closest business colleagues. This is the stuff not of dry
1:59.2	business. This is the stuff of, I know, almost Shakespearean tragedy. It's
2:04.6	astonishing. Yes, and all ripe for a good book. And so for this episode, we've got with us,
2:12.2	Katie Prescott, who is the technology business editor at the Times, but more importantly,
	...

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