The Cannon-Brookes: balancing life as accidental billionaires

Welcome to the new world of the family colloquially known as the nation’s accidental billionaires. Not that they enjoy the label.

Mike and Annie Cannon-Brookes at their hom in Centennial Park, Sydney. Pic by James Croucher

As you stand before its grand, wrought-iron, front gates, the spectacular $12 million Sydney mansion known as Braelin, just metres from Centennial Park, looks just as it did in a glamorous sales pitch for the property last year.

But as you approach the front door through perfectly manicured gardens, you quickly realise the new owners, who paid a record price for the 1918-era property last April, live in a world far removed from that of Braelin’s original owner, former Sydney lord mayor Allen Taylor.

At first there’s not a soul in sight. On the front veranda is a stroller and shopping bag containing a half-eaten bag of pretzels.

Through the doorway, down the end of the grand entrance corridor, you catch a momentary glimpse of a little girl buzzing between rooms in a fairy dress. A boy in a preschool uniform quickly follows, plastic light sabre in hand.

Finally a barefooted, summer-dress wearing Annie Cannon-Brookes comes to the door, with her youngest daughter Tigerlily in her arms, followed by her husband Mike.

Welcome to the new world of the family colloquially known as the nation’s accidental billionaires. Not that they enjoy the label.

“Yeah I’d prefer that tag wasn’t used,’’ says Mike, co-founder of software developer Atlassian, when asked whether he gets annoyed being called a billionaire.

Last year his worth was valued at $1.14bn. That was before Atlassian floated on the Nasdaq in December, closing its first day of trading with a stunning market valuation of $8bn.

“I don’t think rich lists celebrate the right things,’’ the 36-year-old says firmly.

“Anyone who has created any of those businesses had to have amazing teams along the way. Created employment. But there is just a person and a number and that is what you get associated with rather than any achievement. I don’t think it comes down to dollars. When I think about all the things we are proud of, none of them are dollar-related.’’

Yes the Cannon-Brookeses now live in a dream multi-million-­dollar home, own a Palm Beach retreat and last year sold their suave Paddington home for a record price.

He drives a $120,000 Tesla electric car and the family was one of the first in the country to order an expensive Tesla powerwall battery system, which they hope will take them off the Sydney power grid.

They make no apologies for owning some of the trappings of the super wealthy. But they don’t think of themselves as rich. And they dress accordingly.

Mike is unmistakeable in his trademark baseball cap, beard and T-shirt. Today he has added thongs to the mix.

He read several years ago about Apple founder Steve Jobs and “his lack of uniform’’.

“Weirdly, as life gets busier, I don’t have to make choices every day about what I wear,” he says. “I have enough other stuff I have to worry about,’’ he says.

He adds with a smile that the hat is purely practical.

“Having longer hair and working, it always ends up in my eyes and this was a way to keep it out of my eyes,” he says. “So it just became a habit.’’

Cannon-Brookes and his business partner, Scott Farquhar, have been inseparable for the past 16 years, 13 of which have been at Atlassia­n. They served as best man at each other’s weddings and their wives are also close.

“People always ask me if Mike could have founded Atlassian without Scott and I say ‘absolutely not’,” says Annie. “The two balance each other extremely well. If you have a crisis, Scott is who you want there above anyone.’’

She reveals that Farquhar saved her life eight years ago when she had an anaphylactic reaction after a function while her husband was overseas.

“Scott found me and said ‘You don’t look well’. He literally picked me up, put me in a cab and took me to St Vincent’s (hospital). And if he had not done that, I probably would not have made it there,’’ she says.

All Farquhar will say of the incident is that he was “lucky to be at the right place at the right time’’.

The American-born Annie Cannon-Brookes (nee Todd) is an entrepreneur in her own right — she runs her own fashion business 2½ days each week from a bungalow in the backyard at Braelin, which has been converted to a studio. Known as House of Cannon, in September it was the only Australian label chosen to present at the prestigious New York Fashion Week.

Annie owns the company independently of her husband.

The couple have three children: Max, 5, Scout, 2, and Tigerlily, 1. Where a hallway at Braelin was once adorned with classic artworks, it is now covered in photographs of the children. Another wall has an artwork adorned with Lego figures.

In Max’s room, which looks out over a stunning saltwater pool, there is a 1980s Lego play table, purchased off eBay.

Earlier this month Mike turned down an invitation to a deluxe private box at the US Superbowl to return to Sydney for Max’s fifth birthday.

He cringed momentarily when he saw the guest list — it included five of his tech idols — but he still got on the plane home.

The front sitting room at Brae­lin is still adorned with an array of blow-up Darth Vaders and Storm Troopers from Star Wars, the worse for wear after being assaulted by 40 soft-drink-fuelled five-year-olds wield­­ing light sabres during the party.

Last year Mike turned down a private dinner with legendary invest­or Warren Buffett to return home from the US for a family function. He has done a number of what he calls ‘’zero’’ trips to San Francisco, where he spends more time in a plane than on the ground.

“We are lucky in the fact that our goals are the same,” Annie says. “One of our biggest is to provide as normal an existence for our kids as possible.

“Our lives are not as crazy as you think. We still have dinner together, Mike or I drop Max off at preschool and Scout at soccer training. We are pretty balanced. We just say no to lots of stuff.

“In a lot of situations it is easy to outsource your life now, get someone to do the nannying, shopping, cooking. I am really happy that we still do those things like our own grocery shopping.’’ (They have a nanny for 2½ days a week.)

Her husband agrees they have at times offended friends and family by saying no.

“You have to set your priority rankings and at some point you cut it off,” Mike says.

“Sometimes it all becomes too much and you need to make sure your balance is set correctly. In your jar you need to put in the big rocks, then the small rocks and say there are no more rocks I can fit in. Maybe next month you change the constitution of the jar.”

The biggest challenge for the family came last year when Annie attended New York Fashion Week.

It was the first time she had been away from Tigerlily since the day she was born, which was two days before the couple signed the contracts to buy Braelin.

“I remember I told Mike when I left, ‘Please just keep them alive!’ ’’ she says with a wide smile, noting she would never leave them “with anyone else’’.

But she says making the break was empowering for both her and her business.

Mike survived the week, even fitting in a day and a half of work at the Atlassian head office. But he concedes it was “pretty hard’’.

“It is also interesting when the gender roles are reversed how many people offered to help because­ Annie was away,’’ he says pointedly.

Their next big juggling act comes next month, when Annie is scheduled to visit China on House of Cannon business.

But the couple are also acutely aware of the much greater challenge in their lives now they are billionaires: of grounding and, most importantly, protecting their children.

‘’It is the biggest difficulty. I have had more time to deal with it but at the same time I sort of feel it is my fault,’’ Mike says philosophic­ally, but slowly.

‘’Annie gets kind of thrust into it. And it is definitely not their (the children’s) choice.

“It is one of those things, you need to work out how to deal with it. Right now they don’t think about those things. But they will. They will have to process it in their own way.’’

Annie puts it another way. They are words that could be ­echoed by any of the nation’s super-rich, but especially those who have become wealthy at such a young age. And, seemingly, by accident.

‘’What worries me the most is that you get a bit paranoid about why people want to be in your life,” Annie says. “We are both very lucky that there was a very obvious ‘before’ for us — all of my friends I had known before I met Mike or before we were parents.

‘’I get nervous that, with Max, Scout and Tiger, they won’t have a before. I find that really hard. They are all great humans in their own right and I hope that everyone that comes into their lives does so for the right reason.’’