How a public housing child became the leader of his own business empire

Grant Petty has opened up about his difficult childhood and living in public housing before becoming the leader of his own business empire.

Growing up in housing commission communities and seeing his father battle alcoholism for years lit a fire in Grant Petty that led him to become a giant rich lister and businessman.

The Blackmagic Design co-founder has lived a remarkable life from Aussie battler to multi-millionaire, and for the first time the 54-year-old has revealed private details of his heartbreaking childhood.

“You get these horrifying news stories where kids were left in the car out front of the pub – that was our childhood,“ he told The Australian newspaper.

“We lived in the car out the front of the pub waiting for Dad to come out.

“My mum didn’t have a car so she couldn’t literally even get into town to go get milk or anything like that, because he’d wind up in a pub and he wouldn’t come back for hours.”

Although Mr Petty’s father struggled with alcoholism, he was also intelligent and subscribed to The Economist magazine.

“It was more than just an alcohol problem. It is almost like a weird lower class thing that somehow permeated,“ he said.

Blackmagic Design co-founder Grant Petty went from Aussie battler to multi-millionaire. Picture: Supplied.

“He used to say ‘You don’t realise how much freedom you’ve got in Australia, that you’re not constrained by the same things that you are in Europe.’ And I’m thinking ‘Yeah, but you don’t have to be constrained by those things’.”

Mr Petty said his mother was focused on keeping the family running, while his father “often wasn’t there” and recalled their clothes were always second-hand.

He further recalled that he and his siblings had to get out of bed at 6am every day to push his father’s car down the driveway to get it started. Mr Petty now owns a Tesla.

“I now definitely try and make sure I do things at a high quality level – like I’m obsessed with quality,” he said.

“Pushing your dad’s car down the driveway as a kid, that’s a pure quality problem. He hadn’t focused on that issue. He just let it run to the absolute worst state a car could possibly be in.”

Mr Petty said he was relieved when his parents divorced during his teenage years.

He moved from Pearl Beach in NSW with his mother and brothers to a public housing flat in Melbourne.

They later relocated to a housing commission area in Numurkah where he attended the local high school before moving to Shepparton South Tech.

Mr Petty’s chain-smoking father later began asking him for money when they met up over the years.

His father died in 2015, aged in his early 70s, after suffering a stroke.

Mr Petty at his company’s Port Melbourne facility. Picture: Stuart McEvoy/The Australian

Mr Petty and his wife Jessie have three children of their own — a twin boy and girl, aged 13, and a nine-year-old daughter.

He said his experience with his father made him “much more conservative when it comes to business financially” and in his personal life.

“I just worry about pushing things to the edge the way my dad did,” he said.

Blackmagic manufactures equipment and software for filmmakers, making a profit of more than $600m.

Mr Petty co-founded the company in a South Melbourne garage in 2001 and said he might list on the market, but noted it was not a good time now and admitted stockmarket people “freak” him out.

Blackmagic also has offices in California, Britain, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo, and Osaka.

The firm did not sack any of its 1500 staff during the pandemic, in a sign Mr Petty has not forgotten his housing commission roots.

Originally published as How a public housing child became the leader of his own business empire