Inside the Atlassian fallout between Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
They were once the country’s most famous, and inseparable, ‘tech bros’. But tensions at work that not even a counsellor could solve – and wives who ‘couldn’t stand each other’ – led to one of the biggest break-ups in Australian corporate history.
There were at least three billionaires in the room at Ploos, a Greek waterfront restaurant in Sydney’s The Rocks precinct to mark the end of Scott Farquhar’s Atlassian career.
But Mike Cannon-Brookes wasn’t one of them, because nobody from Atlassian was invited.
It was Friday, August 30, 2024, and around 50 friends and colleagues had assembled to celebrate Farquhar’s transition from executive life to private investor and tech greybeard. Farquhar is one half of Australia’s greatest technology success story: the $US50bn software company that Cannon-Brookes, then 36, and Farquhar, then 35, floated on Wall Street a decade ago, cementing their incredible wealth from a humble University of NSW computer science program friendship.
Canva billionaires Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht were there, invited by Farquhar’s wife Kim Jackson, who planned it as a surprise to celebrate her husband’s success. Guests were served slow-roasted lamb shoulder from a South Aegean menu bookended by the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. The goodwill toward Farquhar was genuine but the mood was hardly ebullient.
Because the worst-kept secret in Sydney, indeed in tech, was that Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar had dissolved their two-decade partnership as Atlassian bosses after a succession of rows over luxury property, business strategy and spouses who just didn’t click.
The Atlassian power struggle was decided with Cannon-Brookes winning sole executive control over their company after an irreparable personal and professional falling out, The Australian can reveal a year on from their executive divorce.
Atlassian’s irreconcilable split
“Scott was shafted,” says one Sydney business identity close to Australia’s third and fourth-richest people.
Another source described the breakdown in the relationship between the two billionaires as “total and irreconcilable”, while another said: “It became the Mike Cannon-Brookes show and he didn’t have the same place for Scott in that show as he had earlier on.”
Cannon-Brookes has always been the more prominent of the duo, and it was his idea – which Farquhar jumped at – to form their own business back in their university days. He was also the first to start publicly investing outside Atlassian and has had good relationships with other tech leaders and politicians.
But the clash with Farquhar poisoned their personal lives, families and, fundamentally Atlassian, spilling over into the team that reported to the founders.
It culminated in a professional counsellor being hired to try and salvage their co-founder energy, The Australian learned, but the intervention was either too late or the damage beyond repair.
Meanwhile, Annie Cannon-Brookes, going through a divorce with Mike, and Jackson “could not stand each other”, a fourth source says. Another detected disharmony between Jackson and Mike, while Farquhar was said to have little to do with Annie.
Several sources say that Annie was at times frustrated that her standing in the growing Cannon-Brookes empire outside of Atlassian, largely the Grok Ventures private investment arm, was not the same as that Jackson commanded at the Farquhar family’s Skip Capital enterprise.
The Cannon-Brookeses pledged in 2021 to spend $1.5bn on climate investment by 2030.
People who have worked in the Cannon-Brookes camp say they were discouraged from spending time with, or even being friends with, Jackson and Skip Capital employees.
Other sources played down the tensions, putting this natural distance down to the fact that Annie, an American and personable former fashion designer who would develop her own environmental passions and portfolio, was simply a different person to Jackson, a former investment banker from central Queensland who is socially private.
Corporate mediation fails
The rift between the two families is just as terminal as the men’s once formidable friendship. Both Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar were best man at each other’s weddings.
This was underlined when the Cannon-Brookeses, as future neighbours, in 2020 opposed Farquhar and Jackson’s plan to remodel one of Australia’s richest homes in Point Piper: the $130m Elaine mansion acquired from the Fairfaxes.
Farquhar stepped down as co-chief executive of Atlassian exactly one year ago, but the co-founders had previously endured periods when they were not on speaking terms, according to multiple sources close to the business.
Well before Farquhar agreed to leave on April 25, 2024 (effective August 31), Silicon Valley counsellor Peter Finkelstein was summoned to try to mediate the situation. Finkelstein, self-described as an adviser to CEOs, was tasked with bringing the two executives together and diffusing tensions between the pair. Apparently, it was their idea to hire him.
Atlassian investors were concerned the situation was untenable and made their preference known that the enterprise software firm was better off with a sole leader.
And while the call for Farquhar to step down was framed as a personal decision, others close to the Atlassian camp say the co-CEO model had become unwieldy and Farquhar’s decision may have been him following through on an ultimatum.
“There was always some confusion about who was the main decision maker,” says one source. “And I think investors always wanted one throat to choke a little bit … so it made that decision easier.”
Farquhar also had a period of poor health, partly put down to the stress of running a major corporation across different time zones, informing his decision to bow out.
Neither billionaire would deny the fallout on the record, nor the reasons behind it, after questions were put to them last week by The Australian. Both camps attempted to minimise the hostilities and suggested the men had simply drifted apart with time.
Neighbours, not friends
The Australian also learned there was more to the Point Piper property row. In happier times, the Elaine project was portrayed as two friends and business partners planning to live side by side, with talk of a shared access gate in a show of modern family unity.
But even that picture of domestic harmony struck the tight-knit Atlassian top ranks as odd.
“I was really surprised that they chose to live next door to each other,” one staffer told The Australian. “I thought it was bizarre, given that I didn’t think they were friends and I didn’t think they were best mates. I thought they were co-founders, and I knew long before that that their wives didn’t care for each other.”
Farquhar and Jackson, who paid $71m for Elaine in 2017, spent three years working with Rome-based architects Carl Pickering and Claudio Lazzarini to come up with their dream $37m renovation. Next door, the Cannon-Brookeses purchased the $100m Fairwater.
Pickering is an Australian, from Randwick, and best known as the architect behind Bondi Icebergs.
Elaine was never inhabited by its new owners because it is crumbling. But it was this sudden real estate proximity that underpinned a series of disagreements in 2020 and led Farquhar and Jackson to abandon their revamp.
They said almost nothing about it publicly, and Pickering has only ever referred to the project as “the house from 1880” and “a large house in the eastern suburbs”.
Several sources told The Australian that Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes attempted to have personal discussions about the vision for Elaine, but the talks “did not go very well”.
The Cannon-Brookeses were miffed that they weren’t brought in and briefed on the full details of the radical overhaul Farquhar and Jackson intended. They were said to be concerned about the historic mansion being revived as a contemporary building, and of possibly being overlooked in parts of the Fairwater grounds.
Farquhar and Jackson’s strategy to selectively brief property media, including Pickering’s renders of what the revamped mansion would look like, and announce they were to be lodged with Woollahra Council on the same day, didn’t go down well at Fairwater.
In a statement at the time, Farquhar and Jackson described the plans as a chance “to show the world that we believe in great design, that we care for the environment and that we balance that with preserving the very best of our heritage”.
Almost immediately, sources say, the Cannon-Brookeses made their displeasure known.
John B. Fairfax, who sold Elaine, later referred to “over the fence objections” in an article in The Australian Financial Review last year.
The big revamp was put on the backburner in what was to become a permanent architectural capitulation.
“We were told the neighbours were not happy with it, and given that the only neighbours are either the council on one side or Mike on the other, it was pretty obvious who it came from,” the Atlassian employee says. “So it was quietly dropped.”
The situation remained awkward for several years as spousal loyalty ruled. The Farquhar-Jacksons still turned a profit when they sold it last year for $130m to private investors.
Clash of the wives
The influence of their spouses on the professional dynamic has only grown with time.
Farquhar and Jackson had met in their early 20s, when Jackson was still playing keyboard with rock band Krill, formed with her four siblings, and Atlassian was a fledgling idea the founders were working on after graduating from university.
Annie arrived on the scene close to a decade later as Annie Todd, when she met Mike at the Qantas lounge, mistaking him for someone she knew. The pair struck up a conversation and were married within a year, in early 2010. That was a year after Farquhar and Jackson tied the knot.
“It was never quite like they were the awesome foursome,” one source who knew both couples says. “Annie was originally a fashion designer, Kim was completely different to that. You can see that with some of the investments Skip has been in, like the tech investments such as Canva.”
Skip Capital was an early Canva investor, and the family office tends to participate broadly, and often profitably, in Australian start-ups like Safety Culture and Airwallex.
Another observer saw Farquhar and Jackson as a “genuine partnership” whereas the Cannon-Brookeses had “a bit more of a seesaw type of a relationship that never really had a balance of power there”.
Jackson was said to have been unimpressed with Cannon-Brookes’ growing media personality on matters outside of Atlassian, and was fully aware of how staff inside the company were forming an allegiance to Cannon-Brookes and his social missions.
The rift remains a source of fixation to this day because when Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar – who have combined fortunes of almost $60bn – went their separate ways, little explanation was given. If anything, their vetted official statements have only muddied the issue by referring to the partnership with forced warmth.
Complicating this is the Cannon-Brookes marital separation, and how family law proceedings may, if at all, affect Mike’s direct shareholding in the business.
Who runs Atlassian now
For now, Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar, who still sits on the Atlassian board and has a special adviser role, have equal shareholdings and voting rights.
Farquhar’s last day in the office was commemorated working remotely and with little internal fanfare. This was in contrast to other big moments at Atlassian, when milestones such as Cannon-Brookes’s 40th birthday in 2019 were marked with staff wearing white T-shirts and wigs in tribute to the long-haired billionaire.
Certainly nobody inside the company was shocked when the co-CEOs’ office was dissolved. Indeed, the only surprising thing about it to some was that Cannon-Brookes is the last co-CEO standing.
Staff describe an at-times non-existent working relationship in person, with Farquhar becoming increasingly ruffled about Cannon-Brookes’s distractions, such as his climate and shareholder activism at AGL and the $40bn SunCable solar energy project.
He was particularly riled when Cannon-Brookes made a public bet with Tesla founder Elon Musk in 2017 over the delivery of a large-scale battery to South Australia.
Fair Dinkum Power, a dig at then prime minister Scott Morrison’s pet name for coal, was a typical Cannon-Brookes stunt.
“Scott was the one that was truly, truly, truly involved and embraced in a deep way with Atlassian,” says one former staffer. “Mike I think really struggled to keep his attention and focus on Atlassian. He clearly wanted to be doing other things, but I think he had this sense of burden and ownership on Atlassian.”
You were either a Mike person or a Scott person
Cannon-Brookes has the bigger personality – “when Mike was happy, Mike’s happiness was enormous. And when Mike was unhappy, Mike’s unhappiness was equally large,” says one executive. “You were either a Mike person or a Scott person,” the Atlassian employee said. “You could not be both.”
Another ex-staffer recalls: “Mike just wants to win – at everything. And he stops at nothing to get there.”
Farquhar – “introverted, and I think just socially, extremely awkward” – was still “very, very driven on the core business”.
“I would describe Scott at times as being sort of stern in his demeanour, even when he wasn’t feeling unhappy.”
Others pointed to the unusual company set-up: two co-founders based in Sydney, shares traded on the Nasdaq, and key management figures based in the US.
“I think that is tough. What I saw is them trying to justify why certain decisions were made to their own board or to their own other leadership group,” the current staffer said of the pair.
Atlassian’s “flywheel” distribution model for growth, where products could essentially sell themselves without an expensive sales and marketing function, proved a point of friction.
“There was a question around: was the growth of the company based on that flywheel model and acquisitions like (team collaboration software firm) Trello? Or do you deeply innovate and do actually build new stuff? And I think that there was tension around that within the business.”
The executive close to the pair said keeping their focus on the main game at Atlassian proved challenging for both men.
“They were getting restless. I could feel it. And that’s why the energy stuff was happening with Mike. And I felt like they had reached a level of maturity as business leaders where they were ready for the next thing.”
As billionaires, both enjoyed the trappings of wealth living in Sydney, as much as they cling to their software engineering roots.
Cannon-Brookes juggled a busy family life with socialising through Sydney’s eastern suburbs set, getting elusive tables without a booking. He was conscious of the status his money conferred.
“I think Mike was aware that if we walked into a restaurant in Sydney, everybody knew who he was and whispered, ‘that’s Mike Cannon-Brookes’. It spoke to a certain stratosphere of wealth and power.”
He still managed to enjoy the company of people just like him: intuitively tech-literate. “He was just another lad out with the guys,” one associate said. That is, a guy who was educated at Cranbrook, Sydney’s most expensive high school, and who grew up around privilege. Farquhar went to James Ruse, the most competitive selective high school in NSW.
Farquhar formed tight relationships through the YPO (Young Presidents’ Organisation), according to several sources, many being other CEOs.
Even at their friendliest, the mature-age Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes almost never socialised together.
“They would interact beautifully in public and on stage, but there wasn’t much interaction outside of that,” said the former associate. “I was aware that even though they lived next door to each other, they were not social friends.”
Atlassian insiders
Current chief-of-staff Amy Glancey is described by numerous sources as a key voice in the executive group who is closest to Cannon-Brookes, with huge sway internally.
Glancey had worked at e-commerce marketplace Groupon in a communications role, before making the jump to Atlassian in 2016. She was promoted to become chief-of-staff in the office of the co-CEOs.
An interview with her alma mater, University of Wollongong, reveals Glancey’s thoughts about the Atlassian leaders.
“Mike and Scott were really vocal and progressive. I had this vision of building a brand around them, positioning them as stewards of the tech industry, anti-establishment – breaking the rules, but the tech way,” Glancey said.
That is largely true because that is what has always been telegraphed by the highly private, but rarely unified, Atlassian bubble.
As Cannon-Brookes’ social causes bought him increasing currency inside the company, Farquhar battled with the pressure to match Cannon-Brookes for share of voice, and resisted.
“It was like Amy became the sounding board for Mike, whereas Scott had Kim (Jackson) as his sounding board,” one source said.
Glancey and Atlassian communications chief Louise Halloran had an effective lock on the public messaging.
“Louise and Amy were quite the pair. Amy might push back on Mike, on certain things, but for the most part they were enablers. They would just do whatever Mike wanted. They would make sure it could happen.”
Not everyone agreed with the centre of power increasingly concentrating around Cannon-Brookes, though. “It was the most toxic workplace I’ve ever been in,” the former Atlassian executive says.
Since Farquhar’s departure, Cannon-Brookes has consolidated his power and remade the office of the CEO with a zest for brand advocacy.
He signed a sponsorship deal with the Williams Formula One racing team, estimated to be worth $40m-$50m annually, and received his $75m Bombardier Global 7500 private jet.
In a statement posted to LinkedIn, he confessed to his “deep internal conflict” being a private jet owner known for climate advocacy.
Williams drivers Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz appeared at an in-house Atlassian event with Cannon-Brookes before this year’s Melbourne GP that was beamed through the organisation.
Atlassian staffers have travelled on the jet with Cannon-Brookes on work trips, including a recent trip to Europe.
Mike Cannon-Brookes car accident
Just when their drift or impasse, depending on who you believe, was nearing its eventual end, a serious car accident involving Cannon-Brookes at the end of 2022 “was a real scare” for both the co-CEOs, bringing the pair briefly closer.
But Farquhar and Jackson would go on to buy the $130m Uig Lodge in December 2022, putting some essential distance between the families, albeit still in Point Piper.
Both parties would admit having adjacent mansions was a mistake in hindsight.
And Cannon-Brookes, who is believed to be romantically involved with a new partner, now spends most of his time at another residence, two hours’ drive from the office.
His official residence is listed as the 9.8ha Greylaydes Farm near Mittagong in the Southern Highlands, purchased for $13m in 2022. Cannon-Brookes has since added two adjacent purchases for more than $20m, and splashed out $15.2m for a warehouse-style penthouse loft in Sydney’s Darlinghurst in May.
His new girlfriend, known only as Amelia, is reportedly a technology industry employee.
Annie Cannon-Brookes moves on
Meanwhile, Annie is splitting her time between the Southern Highlands and Sydney, focusing on raising their four children.
She has put her name and wealth to regenerative farming, renewable energy, neurodiversity (her social media account mentions raising a neurodivergent family), design, and community engagement.
Annie is behind the revival of Dunk Island in far North Queensland, which she and Mike had purchased for $24m in 2022.
A team is being assembled to work on her investments and philanthropic pursuits under the SMART family office from Sydney’s Paddington.
The break-up of the Cannon-Brookes marriage became public in July 2023, after Mike bought SunCable – the company that wants to send Northern Territory solar power to Singapore – out of administration after a falling out with fellow billionaire Andrew Forrest.
While their personal lives were being redrawn, Farquhar was still preaching his loyalty to Atlassian: “I’m super jazzed to be here,” he said in an interview.
Six months later he was officially departing.
Farquhar was spotted briefly talking to Cannon-Brookes on the sideline of an Atlassian event in Las Vegas, where they appeared separately, soon after. It was cordial.
Separate ways
Under Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian will finish its huge headquarters being built at Sydney Central, yet most staff work remotely, a quirk that has perplexed almost everyone since the temple to tech ingenuity was conceived. Farquhar was on record in 2023 saying he only spent about four days each year in the office.
He did receive a standing ovation from the all-staff remote “town hall” on his last day, and Cannon-Brookes praised him in social media posts, maintaining a ruse they have cultivated for so long that it has become second nature.
Farquhar did not appear to acknowledge them.
In separate interviews with The Australian earlier this year, the pair were asked about Farquhar’s departure.
“Mike is doing a great job there and I’ll help him out when he needs and the company needs,” Farquhar said.
“I think if you’ve been in the public eye long enough there is going to be a story pretty much any which way on things, and I think a story that says ‘Mike and Scott still getting along after 23 years of running a company together’ is not a particularly good headline,” Farquhar said.
When Cannon-Brookes was asked what he most valued about working with Farquhar, he replied: “It’s all about teamwork, right? We’re very lucky to have had a team at the top. What does that mean? Someone to rely on, and one side’s down, the other side’s down, those sorts of things, right?
“And we’ve talked a lot about this at the executive level. This is not ‘Mike needs to take over for Scott’. This is … everybody in the exec team has to take over, and we have to operate better than we ever had as a team at the highest level.”
It was the type of speech Cannon-Brookes would have likely delivered to the entire staff at the Williams factory headquarters when he flew into central England recently.
He was pictured speaking to staff next to a large photo of him in Williams gear on the grid of a Grand Prix.
At the same time, Farquhar was competing solo in an amateur iron man contest in Germany.
Know more? Email: williamsp@theaustralian.com.au, stensholtj@theaustralian.com.au
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