Before the tragic Learjet crash, Adam Robinson had a message for startup founders: You don't need VCs to get rich

The 45-year-old tech founder died in a private plane crash on Sunday near Greenacres and Palm Beach, Florida, along with his wife, their two young children, their nanny, and two friends. They were flying from Austin to the Bahamas when the plane went down. All nine occupants of the Learjet died, including the two pilots.

"It's an unspeakable tragedy," Brett Hurt, a friend and mentor of Robinson's from Austin, told Business Insider on Monday.

Robinson was an "amazing conscious capitalist," Hurt said, and a "beacon" for other startup founders learning how to bootstrap their own businesses.

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