THOMAS CORDY/PALM BEACH POST / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Adam Robinson — a 44-year-old Texas tech entrepreneur — his wife, their two young children, and the children’s nanny were among the nine people killed in a private jet crash in Florida on Sunday, November 1. The crash is currently under investigation.
According to reports, Adam Robinson, 44, was traveling with his wife Helen, their children, the family’s nanny, and two close friends when their Learjet 60 crashed into a residential area in Palm Beach County while traveling from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas.
Tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson and his family have been identified as being among the victims in the nine killed in the Florida Learjet crash
Robinson, a 44-year-old tech entrepreneur from Texas, has been identified as one of the seven passengers aboard the aircraft, along with his wife, two young children, their nanny, and two family friends. The names and ages of the children, nanny, and friends had not yet been publicly released at the time of this writing.
imagine spending millions assuming your $70m exit was guaranteed. Then the buyer walks the night before signing.
Adam Robinson @retentionadam came on Moneywise and broke down how this happened and how it it might have saved him from financial disaster.
What he had on the table: $35m upfront + $35m earn-out offer
But right before the deal was supposed to clsoe, he started spending like he already had the money:
-Put $1m into a crypto fund
-Bought $1.5m piece of land
-Took out new mortgage on his house
-Leveraged it all on more cryptoThen the buyer walked the night before signing.
“I had literally internalized having this money. It was horrible.”
But the failed deal forced him to keep going. His office neighbors (Jasper AI) convinced him to hire more salespeople instead of thinking about the crappy thing that just happend.
Company tripled in size since then.
-$25m ARR with just 40 employees (most with that rev likely have 150)
-Generating $1m/month in profitHis current finances:
-Personal net worth: $6m (excluding business value)
-Made $4m cash last year (but paid 60% tax rate)
-Monthly spend: ~$60-75k on family, travel, boat paymentsKinda crazy that the failed deal that he felt terrible about led to something much bigger.
Full episode live, let me know what you think.
— Sam Parr (@thesamparr) May 13, 2025
The two pilots aboard the aircraft have also been identified as 55-year-old Jeff Gregory, an experienced pilot from Pennsylvania, and 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras. Filgueiras, who had reportedly accumulated more than 1,300 flight hours, earned her private pilot’s license at just 17 years old while still attending high school, before she had even obtained her driver’s license.
“We’re out of time,” Filgueiras said in the final radio transmission before the plane crashed into the ground and exploded, leaving a massive crater near a residential Palm Beach neighborhood. No one on the ground was killed due to the crash.
The aircraft departed from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on Sunday morning and was headed to North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas when it encountered severe weather over South Florida.
Air traffic control recordings captured the flight crew reporting icing conditions and turbulence before the aircraft suddenly began losing altitude at an alarming rate. The jet was reportedly descending at more than 20,000 feet per minute as the crew desperately attempted to regain control.
The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the crash, with investigators examining the weather conditions and the possibility that the aircraft began breaking apart before impact.
While the official cause of the crash is under investigation and has not been confirmed, hobbyists and pilots on social media are speculating the icing and turbulence led to a phenomenon known as a “Mach tuck,” which is why the plane crashed into the ground at such a high velocity.
A Mach tuck is an aerodynamic phenomenon that can occur when an aircraft approaches the speed of sound, causing its nose to pitch downward due to changes in airflow and pressure around the wings. The effect can make the plane increasingly difficult to control, particularly at high speeds, as the pilot may struggle to pull the nose back up. If not corrected, a Mach tuck can lead to a dangerous, rapidly accelerating dive — essentially, you exceed the maximum airspeed at altitude and it is unrecoverable to the point that you continue to speed up while not being able to produce lift with your wings.