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Scott Farquhar is jittery as he takes the stage at Canberra’s National Press Club, hyper-aware of the optics associated with a multibillionaire proselytising his ideas about how Australia could be better run. But he’s going to do it anyway.
His wife, Kim Jackson, is there to support him, as is his former business partner of two decades Mike Cannon-Brookes.
Performative or not, that Cannon-Brookes had shown up for his mate’s speech was a symbolic showing of loyalty amid frenzied front-page reports of their break-up.
Atlassian co-founders Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes at the National Press Club on Wednesday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
I asked Farquhar about their “personal and professional falling out”, as it’s been put by other outlets, that was said to be behind Farquhar’s departure from Atlassian last April. He says it’s all bullshit.
“It’s a bit of a shame that we take what is probably Australia’s best technology success story, and we try and turn it into gossip,” he said. “None of the things I read were actually true or happened.
“[The relationship] is great. We catch up regularly, you know? I mean it’s great.”
Farquhar came prepared to be asked about the relationship: it was one of the rehearsal questions for the Press Club event that had been accidentally sent to journalists, next to questions about his wealth and philanthropy.
Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, pictured in 2006.Credit: James Alcock
It was all the more unfortunate then that Cannon-Brookes had chosen that same morning – not a day earlier or later – to fire 150 of the company’s staff via a pre-recorded video message, a move that stole headlines and attention away from Farquhar’s big day.
That tone-deaf moment handily sums up one issue that has long afflicted the tech sector, Atlassian included. Founders with big personalities and bigger egos are often the ones in charge – think Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard White – and the company culture is set by them. These personalities can sometimes overshadow the company’s actual work and leave a company vulnerable should they depart or be beset by controversy.
When I ask Farquhar about tech’s “key man risk” problem, he deploys an unlikely analogy. Taylor Swift.
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“If you take Taylor Swift or other megastars in whatever field they do, they have a pretty outsized impact,” he tells me.
“I don’t think we should say that Taylor Swift should sing less of her songs. And I don’t think we should water down the brilliance of many tech founders.
“But I do think as a company gets large, from a governance perspective, you do need to be looking at succession planning at all roles and all levels and making sure you’re resilient to things that could go wrong.”
All told, not a lot has gone wrong at Atlassian. In historical terms, Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar are peerless in Australia for what they’ve built, a $75 billion global company started by a couple of nerdy university students using credit card debt.
For all its faults and imperfections, the co-CEO model has largely worked. During their time as co-CEOs, Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes talked and socialised with each other less than one would imagine.
They’re very different people from very different backgrounds: Cannon-Brookes is the son of a wealthy Citibank executive and Farquhar, meanwhile, would some nights cry himself to sleep as a child because his parents couldn’t afford a computer.
Cannon-Brookes is animated, intense and prickly, Farquhar is thoughtful, halting and generous. This is a large reason why the pair lasted as long as they did – they often kept out of each other’s way, even if they ended up buying adjoining multimillion dollar Point Piper estates.
Atlassian founders Mike Cannon-Brookes (left) and Scott Farquhar (right).
Now, for both men, the real test comes next.
Cannon-Brookes is scrambling to arrest Atlassian’s falling valuation: its shares are down by nearly 20 per cent over the year to date, compared to the overall US Nasdaq which is up by 10 per cent over the same period. He also has to keep a 20-year-old company innovative, without alienating its thousands of users and customers in the process (a software update last month was described by one customer as “arguably the worst in tech history”).
All of that while juggling his extracurricular interests in energy, NBA, Formula 1, and growing perceptions that his lifestyle is now at odds with his eco-warrior persona. The private jet in particular has rankled.
For Farquhar, the real audience that matters won’t be the hundred or so people in the room at the Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday. It’s the other members of this month’s productivity roundtable – people like Matt Comyn, Ken Henry and Sally McManus – along with members of the federal government, whom Farquhar will need to convince of his ideas.
He wants Australia to become the data centre location of choice for South-East Asia, and for the federal government to remove regulatory barriers to AI and new ways of working.
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Farquhar may be biased, but he’s right that Australia will need more data centres, more students taking up technology careers and more intelligence – artificial and otherwise – if it’s to not get left behind.
Australia punches above its weight in sport and Hollywood but remains embarrassingly close to irrelevant when it comes to tech. It won’t be that way for too much longer if Farquhar can get his ideas across the line.
He knows that to shift the nation’s culture, towards one of risk-taking and entrepreneurship, will be an uphill battle, particularly when the words “tech bro” have become so toxic.
But he’s going to do it anyway.
And don’t be surprised if the billionaire returns to start another tech company once he’s done lobbying for the broader sector.
“Never say never,” he says, smiling.
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