Adam Robinson’s final social media post about fatherhood has surfaced after the tech founder died alongside his wife, two toddlers and five others in a Florida plane crash.
The 45-year-old startup CEO, his wife Helen Sharp, 40, their children Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2, and five others perished when the chartered Learjet plunged into the ground near Naples, Fla., on Sunday, according to reports. Robinson had booked the $2 million jet to fly his inner circle from Austin to the Bahamas for his birthday celebration.
Weeks before the disaster, Robinson had confided to friends that life was “going too well,” longtime pal Jesse Ouellette said. The warning now haunts those who knew the Texas native, whose companies Retention.com, RB2B and MoltSets issued a joint statement calling him “a friend, a mentor and a bold, outspoken leader who lived life to the fullest.”
“His loss is deeply felt across our team and the tech community, as we collectively mourn,” the companies said in the statement.
Robinson had built his fortune on Wall Street before relocating to Aspen, Colo., where close friend and mentor Brett Hurt described him as an “amazing conscious capitalist.”
“It’s an unspeakable tragedy,” Hurt said. “He was a genuinely good, loving guy that just loved his family and loved the community so much, and did so much for everyone around him.”
The entrepreneur’s April post on X about balancing work and family has drawn renewed attention in the wake of the crash. Robinson wrote candidly about conversations with peers who sacrificed time with loved ones for career success.
“People my age now (45) said they were working 70, 80, 90 hours a week for their families…but all their families actually wanted was their presence,” he wrote on the platform.
“My family life gives me energy for my work. My work gives me energy for my family life.”
Sharp, who met Robinson while living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, launched the Austin-based PR firm Influential PR in 2019 and started a ceramics business this January. A statement posted to her ceramics page described the couple as having built “a life rooted in family, adventure and love.”
“Helen adored her family. Her happiest place was next to Adam and their two beautiful children, along with their dog Bonnie, who was always by her side (and usually in her lap),” the tribute said.
“To know Helen was to love her. The number of people grieving Helen and Adam is a testament to how many people were lucky enough to have them in their lives.”
Grieving relatives described Robinson and Sharp as having “a love affair that will last forever” and called them “devoted parents” to Emma and Charlie, who “were the light of their lives.”
Also aboard the doomed flight were the children’s nanny, Anita Maria Cetina; two close friends, Rachael Reed and luxury boutique property owner Charmi Fehr; and pilots Jeffrey Gregory, 55, and 20-year-old Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras. The aircraft encountered turbulence and ice before crashing in a fireball, investigators said.
The National Transportation Safety Board is examining the cause of Sunday’s disaster, which occurred as the jet was approaching Florida’s Gulf Coast on its way to the Caribbean.