Before AI came along to sweep up $500 billion dollars of investors’ wallet-juice (US only, 2015-24, source Statista) there was… Bayesian theory.
It seems a bit quaint now, but back then – 1996 – it was hot and huge: the Next Big Thing in Big Data. You didn’t have to understand Bayesian probability to predict that it was going to be awesome. In fact, you probably couldn’t understand it.
But Cambridge PhD Mike Lynch certainly did. He leveraged his knowledge to set up Autonomy Corporation, a go-go outfit if ever there was one. As its share price multiplied one-hundredfold on the NASDAQ exchange, it became a target for acquisition.
We now know that Autonomy’s apparent growth was fuelled, in part, by fraudulent accounting. That much was established by Hewlett Packard in their British High Court claim against the former executives of Autonomy over HPs disastrous $11bn takeover.
So what’s the big deal, then? It’s just another story of greedy techno-bros, yes?
Well yes indeed... until yesterday. When a gigantic waterspout sunk Lynch’s mega-yacht - called, inevitably, Baysian – off the coast of Sicily. Lynch and five others are presumed dead.
Strsnge enough, certainly.
Even weirder when you learn that Lynch's co-defendant in a parallel US fraud trial just died in hospital after being hit by a car on Saturday.
What’s the chances of that happening? And where’s a Bayesian statistician when you need one?
Feels like we’re into spec-fic land. Conspiracists, its over to you!
It seems a bit quaint now, but back then – 1996 – it was hot and huge: the Next Big Thing in Big Data. You didn’t have to understand Bayesian probability to predict that it was going to be awesome. In fact, you probably couldn’t understand it.
But Cambridge PhD Mike Lynch certainly did. He leveraged his knowledge to set up Autonomy Corporation, a go-go outfit if ever there was one. As its share price multiplied one-hundredfold on the NASDAQ exchange, it became a target for acquisition.
We now know that Autonomy’s apparent growth was fuelled, in part, by fraudulent accounting. That much was established by Hewlett Packard in their British High Court claim against the former executives of Autonomy over HPs disastrous $11bn takeover.
So what’s the big deal, then? It’s just another story of greedy techno-bros, yes?
Well yes indeed... until yesterday. When a gigantic waterspout sunk Lynch’s mega-yacht - called, inevitably, Baysian – off the coast of Sicily. Lynch and five others are presumed dead.
Strsnge enough, certainly.
Even weirder when you learn that Lynch's co-defendant in a parallel US fraud trial just died in hospital after being hit by a car on Saturday.
What’s the chances of that happening? And where’s a Bayesian statistician when you need one?
Feels like we’re into spec-fic land. Conspiracists, its over to you!
He's planting the seeds of another stolen election.
