What Does $100B Do to a Friendship? Inside the Atlassian Story

Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar started Atlassian as two university friends with $10,000 in credit card debt. They went on to build a global software giant worth more than $100 billion — and become two of Australia’s richest people. But behind the extraordinary success, their friendship was beginning to fracture. Tech Bros authors and senior business journalists John Stensholt and Perry Williams join Sylvia Jeffreys to reveal what they uncovered about the relationship behind one of Australia’s greatest business success stories — from tensions inside Atlassian and a reported year in which the founders barely spoke, to a multimillion-dollar renovation dispute between their neighbouring Point Piper mansions. In this episode: How Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar built Atlassian from almost nothing The Point Piper property dispute that exposed cracks in their friendship What happened when tensions spilled into the workplace and why Farquhar ultimately stepped down as co-CEO How Atlassian’s culture changed as the company grew The impact of AI and 1,600 job cuts on Atlassian’s future What their story teaches us about friendship, ambition and knowing when to walk away See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.