The Atlassian Story: The Rise of the Tech Bros & the Ultimate Broken Partnership

Two journalists from The Australian spent years digging into the real story behind tech giant Atlassian, and turned it into a book. It traces how two UNSW graduates built a global software company from a Glebe share house into a NASDAQ listed giant worth more than $100 billion at its peak. Along the way, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar became best men at each other's weddings and eventually bought mansions next door to each other in Point Piper. But the book also uncovers how internal tensions, diverging lifestyles and a neighbourhood renovation dispute ultimately drove a wedge between them, turning one of Australia's greatest business partnerships into one of its most quietly broken. Purchase the book here: https://harpercollins.com.au/products/9781460769492 For more content like this: Subscribe to the Mentored newsletter here: https://the-mentored-platform-pty-ltd.myklpages.com/l/WWJGc5 Join my exclusive Mentored+ community: https://mentored.com.au/become-a-member/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  John Stensholt and Perry Williams, welcome to Straight Talk.

• 0:03Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  And I've got your book, Tech Bros. Is that you two?

• 0:07Speaker 01

  He's dressed as a tech bro.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Very, very, you are sort of channeling tech.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I dress for the occasion, but yeah, just to, just to get into character.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  But maybe you could tell me what, or tell the audience by the way, what you both do anyway, day to day, as opposed to writing a book.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  We both work for the Australian newspaper. I edit the richest to 50 lists and have been writing about wealthy and famous people for a long time and a bit of sports business.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, Perry.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  And I'm chief business correspondent at the Australian, cover a little bit of everything, you know, day to day, markets, financial dramas, and most recently, you know, I've been a tech reporter of sorts with, with Tech Bros.

• 0:49Speaker 00

  You guys tech style people, that?

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Oh, look, if you look, look at the amount of grey hair I've got, Mark, probably say that not really. Look, how tech savvy do you need to be these days? You do need to be tech savvy, you're right. But I mean, these guys have been around for, for 25 years, right? So probably chartered them all the way up. So probably around about the same age as, as these guys.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  Are you been following them for a long time?

• 1:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Pretty much almost since day one, since they emerged. I used to be at B O W magazine. They were on the, yeah, remember the Young Rich List and stuff like that, the fast starters? Yeah, yep.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Okay, I remember those days.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  You took over B O W?

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  Actually, I remember pleading with him to get me out of the B O W.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  It's probably me that put you on, Mark, sorry.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  Many years ago. It's not the place you want to be, I can tell you. But it's interesting enough, so you've been following for a long time, right back to the B O W days. I'll be honest with you, until last couple of years, I reckon most people I know didn't, never heard of them.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's probably the software thing, isn't it? If you don't use their software and it's not really like a consumer product in that way, you wouldn't know. But they're probably become a bit more famous for stuff outside their business.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I started to know about Canon Brooks as a result of his South Sydney sort of forays, for obvious reasons, I'm all for the roosters then, but, but, but Farquhar, I like, I never heard, you don't hear boo about, boo about him. I never hear about him at all.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  All of a sudden, they're both worth, you know, $25 billion each kind of thing. So they're in that, you know, that rich list sphere in the business world. But yeah, they've, they've elevated themselves outside of Australia, I suppose, in that way.

• 2:24Speaker 00

  Maybe you could tell us, give me a little bit of colour about Atlassian, Perry. Maybe you could just sort of tell me where's the name come from for a start. But what, what does Atlassian do? I mean, can I get?

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, great, great question. Look, they've got a couple of products, Jira and Confluence. Again, not household names, but what, what they do is they essentially allow companies, you know, big corporates, you know, blue chip clients and so on, to be able to, you know, effectively kind of manage big projects, tasks, workflows throughout an entire company. Essentially what they were able to do was, you know, have different teams, different people all talking to each other. And, you know, basically link it all up into a, into a single product.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  And, and obviously, you know, as they started really in the early days of the dot, the dot com boom and.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  So back to the late 90s, early 2000s.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, early, early 2000s. And probably one of the most impressive things is actually the, the core products which they came up with, you know, in those early years, are actually still their core products now. They, they still account for, you know, most of their, you know, pretty extraordinary.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  A bit like Microsoft, I guess, in some respects, because, you know, Microsoft 360, like, is pretty much a similar sort of product, what they've always had. Nothing's really changed that much. I mean, there's been iterations of it, but it's basically the same core thing. You know, it's a operating system effectively.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  I was about to say, John, remind us, remind me of the name, where the name came from. Oh, Atlassian, yeah. Well, it's all, it's all about the Atlas of the, the, you know, having the world on your shoulders kind of thing. The burden of the world on your shoulders and that. They, they started as a, as a service business, right? Just out of their, out of their, you know, party house in Glebe, which is one of the narratives in the book about, you know, they were basically taking phone calls from overseas and they were like, they wanted to provide superior service and like the best service in the world. So Atlas, you know, the, the sort of the, the great god, you know, world on their shoulders. We're going to provide Atlassian style service. So the best in the world, you know, we're going to support, we're going to support people. And that was, that, that was where the name came from. It's a pretty catchy name, to be fair.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, now I know, now I know. So I'm like Atlas. I'm Atlassian.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  That's the idea of it.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  Because A- Atlas got demoted to that position to carry the world on his shoulders. That was as a result of him having a misdemeanor and he had to carry that for the rest of his.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  It was a men's burden, wasn't it?

• 5:06Speaker 00

  It's a burden for the rest of his, whatever his godly like or life, whatever it was going to be. And, but I, I, so I get it. And were they, were they technologists?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  They both went to university together. So this, this, this is the great story. So they went to the uni of New South Wales, where they had, they were in a, they were in a tech course. It was a pretty, you know, back in the, it was, they, they started in the late 90s and they, they graduate in nearly 2000. So around that time, they, you know, these sort of tech commerce kind of great degrees, they're still, you know, pretty, they're kind of fledgling in a way. So they, they meet at uni, you know, they had that uni life where in the same class and, you know, Scott's sort of, the guy who mixes all of, you know, the, the drinks and the alcohol and they have a great time. And he's the guy that, you know, doing the parties for the, for the class, but they are tech nerds, right? So they're, they're tech nerds together and it gets to a stage where they, they're about to graduate, the tech crash has happened.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  And they're like, oh, what are we going to do next? We're going to go off and do a graduate role at K P M G or one of these places for, it was $48,500 a year was going to be the graduate salary. And they wanted, and Mike famously goes, well, I don't want to do that. Let's, what, does anyone in the class want to run their own business? So he sends out an email to everyone and Scott's the only guy that replies, yeah, let's, let's have a crack.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  They didn't know each other, so to speak.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Well, they did, they did, but they weren't besties. But they were, they were around the same circles. So they were in the same class and that sort of stuff. So definitely known to each other, but that's how the famous story. So it all starts with an email.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  Wow. Why did you guys write the book then?

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Well, we were doing some investigations last year at the Australian and to fast forward to the year before last, Scott leaves the business pretty suddenly, you know, steps down as co-CEO after they've created this amazing, and it was worth a hundred odd US billion dollars only a few years ago, right? So it's amazing sort of from nothing to this. And the, the whole narrative along this, the time was that they were great mates. You know, they're literally collaboration software, their ticker on the NASDAQ is team. So everything was about doing things together. They, they famously bought two houses together, Point Piper, which is a big part of the narrative in terms of how they bust up a bit later. And we, we heard that, um, you know, maybe things weren't quite as they seemed. So we go and, you know, do a bit of digging. It turns out that they, you know, had a few fallings out along the way.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  And Scott gets to the stage, even when Scott has his big farewell, Mike's not invited to the farewell. So we're like, well, what's going on here? And so we write a bunch of stories in the paper and then, you know, we, then, then we, um, we get into a book a little while later and here we are.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  So it's, it's interesting how you guys find stuff out. I mean, I'm not, I'm not asking you to divulge your sources, but what made you get interested in what these two guys are doing? Was the fact that they were multi billionaires out of, they were going from zero to a hundred billion in relatively speaking, short period? Or is it because they, they're doing, they've done it through technology? Or was it because their personalities, not, not, not, not the part where that you heard they fell out, but just interest in the, in Atlassian from like from the early days?

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, it's a great story to start with, right? Cause they literally start with nothing. Well, you know, they, they start with a little bit more than nothing, which we detail. But they start with nothing. They build this amazing Australian, so global success story from Australia.

• 8:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  But also along the way, they've packed in so much other stuff, like Canon Brooks becomes this climate sort of warrior, then he.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  Is he, is he a climate warrior?

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, because he had a big tilt at A G L.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, I remember that, yeah.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  So, you know, to go from, you know, he was, his whole idea was to turn the sort of dirty coal business into a clean energy business. And it's still evolving. He does all his other, you know, he, he buys into South Sydney, he buys into the Utah Jazz. Yeah, the, yeah. So he's in the NRL, he's in the NBA as well. You know, Farquhar does a whole bunch of other investments as well. He becomes, they both have done a lot outside just their business. So we figured it was an interesting story and we found out, you know, a hell of a lot more.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  Are they both sort of green warriors, environmental warriors?

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, look, I mean, Mike in particular, you know, really made himself like the face of a, of a very sort of public campaign. You know, you remember Greta Thunberg?

• 9:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  You know, and the school strikes for climate. You know, I think it was on Fridays, schools would shut down, there was this climate, you know, so Mike was passionately behind that. He, yeah, you know, he told, he, he sort of wanted Atlassian staff to take the day off and really, you know, show their climate stripes and so on. And that, that led, you know, to his A G L energy investment. Scott probably had similar, a similar outlook on life, but I think for Scott, the main game was Atlassian. And, you know, Mike, all of a sudden had a lot of distractions and, you know, his main game kind of appeared to be,

• 9:57Speaker 02

  you know, being a climate warrior.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  Would you call him an activist?

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, with A G L they were, but yeah.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd, I'd, I'd say, I'd say he was an activist.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  So it was, sorry to interrupt, but it was, was it just Mike on A G L or was Scott involved in that?

• 10:10Speaker 02

  No, just Mike.

• 10:11Speaker 00

  Just Mike. So would you call him an activist?

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, look, it was an activist play on, on A G L. Yeah, just to, just to go back, I mean, Mike, it was a bit of an unlikely pairing, teamed up with Brookfield, a big Canadian investor to take over A G L.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Twice they got rebuffed and what Mike ended up doing is buying, you know, eleven percent stake in AGL and trying to sort of influence the company. He called it the biggest sort of fossil fuel project he could find in the world because, you know, he wanted to get inside the company and change it. So, yeah, I think that's almost the definition of activist.

• 10:54Speaker 00

  It seems to me that one was more activist, more active than the other one. Or maybe is, or is that just my, is that just from bleeding publicly?

• 11:05Speaker 01

  That's probably goes to their personalities too, right? So, you know, yeah, absolutely. Mike was more public, he was using social media. He was talking to Elon Musk on Twitter, now X, you know, back in, they did this battery deal in South Australia.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  I remember that.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he's doing things like that, he's, he's going after.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  That wasn't a bad deal.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely, it was a great deal.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  Admirable.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, and going after Scott Morrison about coal, you know, using social media a lot, using the platform that he had from the money that he's made to do that. Scott is a bit more of a quieter character, so he's a bit more like, that's, that's what he was investing in with his money. Like, he certainly probably held the same principles, but he was doing it more sort of like, you know, like, he was putting his money where his mouth probably wasn't, but he was still sort of behind it. So he's doing a lot of investing in, or potential investing in infrastructure that, you know, would provide green energy or other things like that. So whereas Mike was a lot more out there, yeah, he was on ABC, he was on, you know, he was on television. He was doing, you know, sixty Minutes, he was doing all sorts of things like that. Whereas Scott wasn't doing that publicly, but that's, and that's probably part of where they sort of,

• 12:05Speaker 01

  you know, started to diverge when it come to Atlassian.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  Scott and Mike, were they both running, they were co-CEOs of Atlassian, obviously co-founders, but co-CEOs of Atlassian.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Was one responsible for one part of the business and the other was responsible for another part of the business? Are they different skillsets?

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, they actually, they actually sort of swapped around duties kind of over, you know, you've got to imagine this happened over a couple of decades. So, you know, they, they sort of both had their strengths, but, but they did consciously try and kind of move it around a little bit, so they kind of, you know, continued testing themselves. But, you know, I, I, I think probably as, as the money and the riches started to, to flow in, you kind of had this situation where there was sort of a team Mike and a team Scott, you know, that emerged, you know, within Atlassian.

• 13:00Speaker 00

  Within the business.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, within the business and, you know, I think that became sort of quite awkward and quite difficult to handle as well. You know, you sort of had Mike sort of being the more outgoing personality, probably attracted a certain, you know, following, I guess, you know, within the company. And Scott being a bit quieter, probably cracked the whip a little bit more, very cost conscious. You know, this is from us, you know, sort of talking to a sort of dozens of people who have worked there. You know, kept a really tight rein on, on budgets and so on. And you started to kind of see a little bit of a divergence there.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  So, so for people like yourself, when you see a, like, let's call it a split,

• 13:45Speaker 00

  is that what sort of interests you? Like, is that, is that sort of fertile ground?

• 13:50Speaker 01

  But I think you've probably seen this in, in your business life, Mark, and certainly John and I have. I mean, you know, dozens of official announcements, you know,

• 14:02Speaker 01

  ex-person off to spend more time with their family.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Personal reasons.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Personal reasons and, you know, you, you, you read it and, you know, your left's scratching your head. Occasionally, someone gets to the bottom of what really went on, often they don't. And, you know, I think that's where the, our stories and the book started. You know, we heard a few whispers that there was a little bit more to Scott standing down. And, and that's, that's really where it started. And, you know, I've done a lot of reporting with, with a sort of energy hat on. So I was quite familiar with Mike from an energy perspective. John, obviously, charting the two billionaires and, you know,

• 14:48Speaker 01

  it, it, it was this over the, over the fence sort of Barney over a renovation, which is where we kind of started calling people.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  You heard about that?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  You, you did hear about that and that's when you started calling?

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's when we started calling and the really interesting thing was, you know, we started where, where, where the houses are in the eastern suburbs, we started calling around.

• 15:12Speaker 00

  Maybe talk about, let's talk about that. So let's, so what do they do? They go and buy what?

• 15:17Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it's just a, just a mere hundred and seventy million dollars spent with two houses in Point Piper.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  Two houses next door to each other?

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, Fairwater and Elaine. So one of them, Farquaad buys it, buys Elaine first, seventy million, was a sort of circa twenty eighteenish. And then a year later, Cannon Brooks buys a place next door for a hundred million dollars now. You know, and the narrative from them, and they're very good storytellers, right? You know, look, tech founders are a lot like that, Mark, as you know, like, you know, there's a, there's a founder story with a lot of people. You know, we, we do this, we meet here and there's an inflection point here and then they grow the company there. And, you know, Elon Musk has a great story and, you know, Tim Cook and all these people from, you know, all that sort of thing. So there's, there's that along the way and then, and then they're going to live happily ever after.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  Next door to each other.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Next door to each other.

• 15:59Speaker 00

  In Point Piper.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Because they're best mates.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  One of the houses they bought was Mary Fairfax's house.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Yes, that's right. So both sort of Fairfax estates.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  Who bought the Fairfax house?

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there was.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  Lady Mary.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Lady Mary, that was the hundred million dollar one, right? From, yeah, so Cannon Brooks buys that a year after Elaine next door that Scott had bought. So they're going to live happily.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  And one was Vincent Fairfax's house.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right, yeah. So they were, and they were both record setters, like one was a record one year, then another one was. So the, the whole narrative was we're going to live happily ever after together. The kids will knock down the fence between it, the kids can run around and so on and so forth.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  And the wives, you're going to have a couple of teams with each other.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Correct, yeah, that's right. Now, that's, you know, there were cracks there after a while too, but, and so you get to a stage where, you know, the, the houses were pretty run down, you know, you know, in a, in a rich mansion kind of sense, right? So Scott wants to do a big renovation on his, right? So forty five million dollar reno.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  So Scott wants to do on.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Elaine.

• 16:51Speaker 00

  Elaine, yeah, okay, so that's, that's Vincent Fairfax's house.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  And that was a bit more rundown than one next door, right? So.

• 16:56Speaker 00

  Because Bob Rose used to live there.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, okay, at one stage, yes, that was a while ago, right? Before, yeah, and then so foot puts, you know, it puts the word out, he wants to do a reno, right? So forty five million dollar reno, which is a pretty substantial revamp of what was there. You know, there's renders that are drawn up and the architects have a great, you know, great look at it and so on and so forth. But then it very quickly turns out that the bloke next door or the, the wife next door ain't too happy about the renos, which is a classic Australian thing, right?

• 17:26Speaker 00

  Cannon Brooks's wife.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Correct, and so who's next door? It's the Cannon Brooks's. So what's going on here? Well, aren't they talking to each other?

• 17:33Speaker 00

  I mean, what about the hole in the fence?

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Exactly, that, that's all, so what's happened here?

• 17:37Speaker 00

  Are they just saying go chat to each other about it?

• 17:39Speaker 01

  No, no, this is, this is what happens internally at, at Atlassian, dozens of people tell us. Well, one gets surprised by the other. It even turns out that they're, they're so worried about it that at one stage Annie gets scaffolding put up. Annie is, sorry, Annie Cannon Brooks, who's, who's Mike's dead wife, they've split up since. So she's worried about the reno and, you know, that, look, if you're getting a house built next door, is it going to cast a shadow or are they going to look into your bedroom? So she gets scaffolding put up to show what it would look like and she's horrified by this, right? So the word goes out pretty quickly that the neighbours, i.e., you know, the bloke that I'm working with is a co-CEO.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  My best mate.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  My best mate allegedly, doesn't want us to do the reno. So they pulled, they pulled the, they pulled it before they basically put it in, they were going to put it in the council and it's gone.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  Oh, they, they didn't lodge the DA?

• 18:26Speaker 01

  No, they put out all the renders and talked about it to the media and then like, it's going to be lodged in the next couple of weeks. But, you know, word quickly got back to them that, that, that they didn't, the neighbours didn't want it.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  So, so the Cannon Brooks's at the time, husband and wife at the time, they, they were going to object formally. If, if this DA was lodged because of some impeachment or impingement, I should say, in relation to perhaps their privacy or something they didn't like the look of. By the way, we're talking about forty five million dollar renovation.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  That's not like a renovation, that's like a.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  It was a complete revamp of, of a historical house, absolutely. And I think there was a, maybe only a small element of, of the historic part that was going to be kept. And there was a, it was like a rooftop tennis court and all sorts of stuff.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  Whoa.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 19:15Speaker 00

  Serious?

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a big reno.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  Well, no, but just for context for people who don't know the spot. So it's on New South Head Road, but it's right on the waterfront. They both go down to the water, they both got beaches in front of them. And they probably, I, I can't remember how big Elaine was, but certainly Lady Mary Fairfax's house, who's, who's home I'd been into many times, was probably sitting on a block of land close to an acre, something like that. It was like an enormous block of land.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Beautiful grounds, didn't it?

• 19:46Speaker 00

  Beautiful grounds.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Functions held there.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Actually, my uncle, my dad's brother, young's brother, was the groundsman.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Oh, wow, there you go.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  Right up until, even after Mary passed away. And it was between Charles and his sister. And my uncle, Uncle Arthur, he was the groundsman there and I often used to go and see him there. And my kids went to school across the road and he used to see my kids, my kids used to see him after school and stuff like that, Uncle Arthur. And, yeah, so I knew the property quite well and I'd been there to see Mary a few times. And after Warwick had passed away. And, yeah, so, and I got to meet the kids. It was an, actually, it's an amazing bit of land, like, like, yeah, probably as good as it gets.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  The views are amazing.

• 20:28Speaker 00

  Amazing, and on the beach.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  So there was actually sand there. So, and Elaine was something somewhat similar. So what's interesting about this is that they both properties probably needed money spent on, but probably were underutilized in terms of the amount of space they got.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  You could probably put a whole lot more stuff there.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  So Scott decided, him and his wife, I presume they're still married?

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  They, they decided that they're going to make the best of it. Didn't lodge the D A in the end because they're neighbours and his business partner were going to object to it.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  So what happens then?

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Well, Scott and Kim never end up, Scott and Kim Jackson and his wife don't end up living there.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  They never lived there.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  They never lived there.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  How much did they make for it?

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Seventy, seventy one, sorry.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  Seventy one million?

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  They never lived there.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  And then they, so they, they were renting another place for a while nearby and they ended up buying, uh, is it pronounced Weig Lodge? Which is up, up the road for a hundred and thirty million a couple of years ago. So that's where they live today.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  So they, do they still own Elaine?

• 21:30Speaker 01

  They've sold it to a developer that now, there, there was a consortium that put together that wanted to, um, carve it up into four. Oh, what would you sort of say? Let's say, let's call it, you know, high end sort of, um, retirement, sort of age care, sort of, uh, facilities, which is still, still not, still, yeah, the work is not underway there. And I don't think it even has the necessarily, you know, fast track approvals or anything like that. So it's just sitting there vacant.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  So do, do the Cannonbrooks still own, um, Fairwater?

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Again, it's vacant.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  I can sort of imagine the conversation. Listen, if you're not going to prove it, we'll sell it to somebody else who'll do it. I mean, like.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  You want to have something worse next door.

• 22:10Speaker 00

  You could have something worse. Well, you, you will, you're going to have four lots of whatever they're going to have there. Um, it's not a great outcome. Does the Cannonbrooks ever move into, uh, Fairwater?

• 22:18Speaker 01

  For a little bit and it was so, I think it was so, you know, rundown that, um, you know, cold that the, the, the story goes that they had to, they, it got so cold that they were wearing ski, ski gear inside.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, cause it's a really old joint.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Drafty place, right?

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And it's like massive ceilings and like huge entry foyers and, you know, like grand staircases. It's very grand, but, but it wouldn't have been built for, for a cold winter.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, in a modern sort of, yeah.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  In a modern, the way we'd like to have it in a modern sense.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  So that's empty as well. And so, um.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  So we've got a hundred and what was then a hundred and seventy million, it's probably worth much more now. Cause like property prices since that period, what, what year we're talking about?

• 22:57Speaker 01

  We're talking about, uh, twenty nineteen.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  Okay, seven years past is probably a double.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  So we're talking about, we're talking about now, uh, three hundred odd million dollars worth of real estate. Just sitting there, um, unlived in.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Yes, cause sorry, Scott sells his, the one that he bought for seventy one for a hundred and thirty.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Still don't be lived in.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And so, yeah, so that's right. So Fairwater will be worth a lot more. Yeah.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Off the back of this so-called dispute.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  And then they've gone and spent the same amount of money buying other stuff in other places.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Yep. Yep. And meanwhile, Mike and Annie have, have split up and they both basically live in the Southern Highlands now.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  Uh, they, uh, they moved down to the Southern Highlands.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  And, and I mean, during, well, in the years after this period as well, Mike goes on this extraordinary property spree.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  Buying, buying property?

• 23:48Speaker 02

  Oh, buying property all, all over, uh, what, a dozen.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  No, it's, it's thirty five properties all up that we at least know of.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Houses.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yep. Properties, yes. There's plenty up, uh, Palm Beach Way, uh, you know, north of Sydney.

• 24:03Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  And Southern Highlands as well. And also obviously, yeah, Point Piper as well and others around it. So, so look, what quickly emerged that, I mean, him and Annie split up a few years ago and what they were doing was buying, effectively buying mansions side by side, right? So, you know, you know, kids could go between the two of them. There's, there's several up.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  It's not dissimilar to the way he wanted to live with Scott though.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like Palm Beach Way, yeah, you know, have your summer up there.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Um, Southern Highlands as well. And then you've got Sydney bolt holes as well. So, yeah, thirty five, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars worth.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  Hey, how do they get them, the companies listen on the Nasdaq?

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  But how do they get their money out? I mean, do they sell stock or?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what happens? There's this, there's this, I won't bore you with the details of what it's actually called, but there's this stock selling plan. So they owned eighty odd percent of the company when it floats, right? So it's twenty fifteen, it's this amazing float. All of a sudden they're, you know, billionaires. Paper, they're in their mid thirties and they sell off small slices every day to sort of give liquidity in the market and also like, you know, there's stock, uh, employee stock options, right? They end up selling, uh, about five billion dollars worth of stock over time.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  So little, little, you know, could be a million dollars, turned out to be a million dollars every day, some years. So they end up with about five billion dollars in cash, you know, take off tax or whatever tax they pay on that. They've still got billions of dollars and that's where they, they get property, they buy into the sports teams. Uh, Mike Cannonbrooks eventually buys a private jet a couple of years ago, which was very controversial too.

• 25:30Speaker 00

  I want to talk about that.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there's all sorts of other things too. Scott ends up being, um, one of the biggest, um, uh, airport investors here in Australia, individual. So he owns a bunch of, he has a slice of a bunch of Queensland airports and a whole bunch of other infrastructure things as well. So they, they do a lot, they get a lot of money in. Mark, that no one else has got this amount of money in cash over that time in Australian history.

• 25:51Speaker 00

  Like real money.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Real money. Yep. And so they, they, they, that gives them this buying power to do all sorts of things.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  So one of the things I noticed about, um,

• 26:02Speaker 00

  Mike is he seems to be very close to Albanese. And it might've been the South Sydney connection, cause Albo was a director of Souths and that's his team. Has your investigations sort of, um, dug up the fact that, um, he's more left leaning, more Labour Party leaning?

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Probably more teal leaning, isn't it now, Barry?

• 26:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah. Um, look, um, you know, certainly with a lot of his renewable investments, his, you know, his climate change, uh, advocacy, um, you know, some of that would, would chime in with, with Labour for sure. But, um, yeah, both, both Scott and, um, and Mike have, um, donated to the Teals.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Um, and, you know, the, quite substantial amounts as well. Um, so they've been, um, you know, I guess, I guess it's in the areas where they live, right? Um, and they've, they've sort of been quite passionate about that. Um, and, and, you know, they've also got their philanthropy. Um, both of them have sort of slightly different ways of coming at that. Um, and it's probably fair to say, um, still the bulk of that is, is yet to come. So they've, um, put some quite big numbers on the table for, uh, you know, how they want to, um, ultimately, you know, give some of that money away.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  But, um, it's, you know, perhaps in Mike's case, it's become a little bit complicated, um, you know, through the divorce proceedings, you know, which are, which are still underway now. Um, you know, Scott and, and, and his wife Kim are, are proceeding down a different route as well.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  Is, is the book, is it more, is it sort of like a yarn or is it a bit more like Joe Aston with the cornice thing, uh, and with Joyce?

• 27:48Speaker 01

  No, there's, there, it's just, it's a yarn because like they've, they've done so many colourful things and there's so many colourful things that have happened to them.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  Cause they're interesting characters.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  They're interesting characters and there's been, there's that narrative of the, of the bust up as well. And also what's happened internally, like it, the cultural stuff in there as well, it's swirling around Atlassian. It used to be the best place to work and now there's just so much, so many dramas internally as well. It's a story of, uh, of people that have been really, really successful and have become very, very wealthy because of that. But there's also, then there's the pitfalls of, of what happens when you make a lot of money and you fall out and you have marriage issues and you, you become a company and people that you weren't when you started. So it's a rollicking tale of, yeah, what happens? It's, it's a lifestyles of the rich and the famous.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  And it's a story of success, but it's a story of, you know, what happens to you when you become successful. It's not always fun and games, I think is probably the.

• 28:44Speaker 00

  Sort of be careful what you wish for type of thing.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:46Speaker 00

  Because, you know, a lot of people would be, oh, wow, wouldn't it be great to be these guys and, uh, you know, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, it's still probably, plenty of people still say it would be great to be these guys, notwithstanding all the sort of trials and tribulations have been through more recently. But what, what do you see as Australians, um, yourselves and as Australian authors? Um, and, and, you know, and you're involved in writing for The Australian in terms of a business, sort of total broader sense of business in Australia. Um, what are the lessons we learned from this?

• 29:19Speaker 02

  There's a few key ones. I mean, I'd probably just start with, um, uh, you know, some of the amazing things they've delivered. Um, you know, the, the startup tech culture, which didn't really exist before Atlassian, um, came along, you know, the, these, these guys have sort of paved the way. They've, you know, I think we're talking about Canva just before we, um, started this.

• 29:45Speaker 00

  But is that's not worth the, the sort of money these guys are worth?

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 29:48Speaker 00

  Canva's worth forty five billion or I think recently had a different sort of valuation.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's pretty close to what.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  But these guys, no, but he got a hundred.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Oh, they got up to, yeah, a hundred odd million, yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Right, they've come off, Atlassian's come off.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  It's come off. Yeah, that's right, it has.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, you know, partly with A I, um, which, which we might get to. But, but so, so look, they've created this, um, quite fantastic sort of startup culture, um, in Australia and they've been enormously influential in there. So I, I think that's a real, um, credit to them.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  It's a great Australian story.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  It's a great Australian story. Yeah. Um, uh, but, but probably, um.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  The human story might be slightly different though, is that right? Cause human stories evolve.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Look, uh, you know, I think if you think back to when you're in your early twenties and, um, and, you know, fast forward twenty five years to your late forties, you know, you, you're quite different people. Um, you know, they, they started off this company, um, and they wanted to do things differently, you know, they didn't infamously, they didn't want to go and work at a, you know, big four accounting firm. They wanted to create their own culture and they did. And hundreds, even thousands of Atlassian people were really passionate about working there. But as it got bigger, that started to fray and I think they started to go into different, um, into different directions.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  And there's no doubt that, that the money that it was spinning off, you know, played into that. Um, you know, Scott has talked about, I mean, these guys do a lot of podcasts, uh, you know, they're ten guys, um.

• 31:19Speaker 00

  And by the way, this is unauthorized. This is not, this is not an authorized book. They didn't sort of give you interviews and say, go for it, boys. Everything is great.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  No, no, definitely not. No, they're not happy about it.

• 31:29Speaker 00

  They're not happy, no.

• 31:30Speaker 02

  I was just going to say, look, you know, Scott, Scott's talked about, um, you know, with, with his own kids. Um, you know, people come into their lives and they've had to sort of think about, oh, you know, are they coming in for the right reasons? Are they, are they our friends or are they attracted by something, by something else? So.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  Money and power.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  And, and, you know, I think one of the things we probably love about Australia is, you know, it's, it's, um, it's, you know, people can walk down the street and, and.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  Not be recognised.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. But, but certainly, um, you know, there, there has been a bit of a, a bit of a pitfall there as well.

• 32:04Speaker 00

  It's a great Australian story in terms of. A startup business taking on the world and doing it successfully. But it's also a, there's a human story in there of how we change. Is that a part of, is that a sort of theme that comes out of this book outside of the yarn?

• 32:24Speaker 01

  Definitely, yeah. I mean, there's the, but the thing with that is that the, the way that these guys always wanted to be portrayed, it was those two things mixed together, right?

• 32:32Speaker 00

  That's always dangerous.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  The, the business and the human part, right? So you see like, um, you know, there's billionaires in America that will, you know, quietly go about their business and, uh, you know, not, you know, not really put their heads up and they just, you know, they, they play, um, you know, they play golf or they, you know, have yachts or they have planes and.

• 32:48Speaker 00

  Well, Berkshire Hathaway for a sign.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Exactly, right. And they just do their thing.

• 32:51Speaker 00

  They still live in the same house and Charlie and him lived in the same houses. They were married in like sixty years ago.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Correct. And whereas like someone like Mike in particular wanted to change the world, right? So you put yourself out there and you say, we talked about before, you want to be, you know, you, you're being an activist in something outside your business, right? So you become something that you weren't when you started that business publicly. And then you, you know, you probably, you know, you, you pop your head above the parapet, right? And then, and then you clearly get open to charges of hypocrisy if you're not necessarily doing what you're saying. So this is, this happens along the way as well now. So I agree, there's definitely a business part to it and a human part to it, but a key part of their narrative and their story that they always promoted themselves was how those two mixed together and mixed together successfully.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  So we came along and found out that that wasn't always the case. Now, there's no doubt.

• 33:48Speaker 00

  At a personal level.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  Correct, on a personal level. On a business level, absolutely still a success. AI is coming along and it's gonna, there's a question mark. No, it doesn't.

• 33:57Speaker 00

  The question will be that, can they overcome that?

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Correct, yeah. And that's another issue. So there's definitely a, a part to that where the human part is, is different, but they always talked about it together.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  Cause I have seen the share price had bounced.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  It has recently.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Bounced up and, and I do note that they copied a bit of a punch in the mouth. Um, maybe at the beginning of the year when they sacked a whole lot of people because.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:18Speaker 00

  They didn't need them anymore, presumably using AI to cover those jobs. But by the way, if I'm a shareholder on the NASDAQ of that company, I would be glad that they're doing that. Cause I don't wanna, you know, have the overheads too high if they don't need to be. So that's the sort of job, that's your responsibility to your shareholders.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 34:36Speaker 00

  Which might happen to be your fifty percent of it, but it doesn't matter. Um, so I, I sort of get that part. But in terms of, um, uh, the human story of it, and it's unfortunate, Mike and his wife are sort of part of the company now, but, um,

• 34:50Speaker 00

  it doesn't matter at the end of the day, how much money you got, you're still subject to all the vagaries of, um, normal life.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 34:57Speaker 00

  And that's, that's what's coming out in the book.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Hmm. Well, the rich list is not necessarily the happiest.

• 35:02Speaker 00

  No, no, that's, that's what I, I think that the rich list, you know, grace, respect to you and your colleagues.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  That's okay.

• 35:09Speaker 00

  It's a tough one to, to be, and you know, I, I know other people who you've put on the rich list this year, uh, last year and who, um, sort of, uh, run a bit of trouble.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Hmm. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's not, um, yeah, yeah. Making money is not necessarily the key to happiness. So you've got to find a balance.

• 35:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that's a good point. I'm glad you raised that because like, does, does money equate to happiness? Does fame equate to happiness? Does, um, heavy duty activism or, um, or, um, um, you know, something you really believe in? Does that equate to happiness?

• 35:46Speaker 01

  If they had their time again, would they, would they do the same thing? It's a good question. I'm not sure.

• 35:49Speaker 00

  Together?

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Together, yes. But I'm thinking the activist part, I'm not so sure.

• 35:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's interesting. It's, but, but no doubt in Mike's case, he's passionate about it.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  He's extraordinarily passionate about saving the planet or doing our part in saving the planet, Australia's part. And that enthusiasm, um, you wonder, the question becomes, should I have been so public perhaps? Like, you know, I've done lots of things in my life and plenty of times I've sort of regretted it.

• 36:23Speaker 00

  And, you know, fortunately I've been able to sort of move on and that, that stuff gets stamped in the past and, you know, and the stuff I'm doing in the moment sort of probably becomes more, um, more important. I'm terrified of you two guys walking in and saying, why don't we go check Boris?

• 36:39Speaker 00

  But, but I don't have enough money to do that. Like you've got to be in, by saying these, you've upped the game. You're in the, they're not in the hundreds of millions anymore. You're in the billions.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  You're in the billions.

• 36:47Speaker 00

  If you're not in the billions, it's not worth writing that.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  The tens of billions.

• 36:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, and more. Um, so the tech bros, and you've got them with one face, I presume that's half face, face.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Now, a, a great friend, Nick Walker, who's a photographer, um, he actually, he, that's his, that's his creation, that, that face, which we did, he did for a magazine profile quite a while ago, but he, he was struck by how similar their, their faces are. Yes, the, the shape of their faces. That's why he put that together. We thought it'd make a great book cover. Tech bros, yeah. I mean, look, you know, it is a, it's, I mean, they were meant to be bros, right? They're in tech, they were meant to be together. They, that was, it's, it's a play on that, that, that, that wording for sure. But it, I think it also tells that story of what they were at one stage too.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  Bros in, not in so much, but actually probably were like brothers.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Hmm. Hmm. Oh, the, the best men at each other's weddings.

• 37:36Speaker 00

  Were they?

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So, um, you know, started the business two thousand and two, was it, John? Um, ten years later or thereabouts, best men at each other's wedding. And then I think as we document in the book, I think it was twenty nineteen, they have this year of not talking, uh, as it was described to us. Uh, where, you know, this is.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  For a whole year or for a period of time.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  Pretty much, yeah. Um, this is after the, um, Elaine and, and, and Fairwater or, or sorry, around that time.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  Where are they now? Because I hear, but I've heard, I've seen stuff where they're both putting it out together, like it's, it looks like they're, do you think they're made up?

• 38:15Speaker 01

  I think they're, I think, well, I mean, they're, they have to have board meetings together. They have to do things like that together. Scott's still on the board. He's still a major shareholder. They're not putting things out publicly or not being seen in public together for a long, for quite a while.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  Still.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  So still, look, I think it's sort of like, you know, they'll, they'll catch up and talk business and stuff like that. Occasionally Mike puts, puts, pops his head up and say, yeah, look, you know, we have a beer and we have, no, but the, the people that we know that know them really, really well, say that that's not quite the case. Now, they, they're probably civil, they have to be, you know, time, time heals a lot of wounds. But there's certainly times when they were like, you know, right together. And I think that pressure, you know, created an issue.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  What are some of the things you discovered in your research that, what, what other things did you discover in your research that might be covered off in various chapters?

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Well, I've got, uh, there's, there's an interesting one for you with a, from a rugby league point of view. We found a couple of old blogs from, um, from Mike that we talked about how he, how much he loved the Roosters.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, originally.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Yes, originally.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  Oh, wow. Well, they're really, they're point five roosters.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Well, I know. Now he's a, now he owns, you know, a chunk of the Rabidows. That's a bit controversial between those two blogs.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  But he, he, he, are you saying that, um, John, are you saying that at some stage or other he liked the Roosters?

• 39:28Speaker 01

  He was blogging about the mighty Roosters. Cause back in the day, like twenty odd, twenty, twenty-three, twenty-four years ago, he had his own blog. That's what people did, right? He put all his whole life, he talked about, you know, his basketball final was on, he talked about girls, he talked about this, that and the other. And then he talked about the mighty Roosters and how they're gonna beat the, you know, the mighty Roosters are gonna beat the New Zealand. Remember they played the Warriors, it was about, oh, two.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  It was two thousand and two, we won the grand final.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  That's right, yeah.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, Villasanti, Villa the Gorilla, um, opened up Brad Pittler's head.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that's right.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  And, uh, Adrian Morley went and squared up very quickly and we won the grand final.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, there you go. Well, you were cheering for them that day and we suspect, uh, Mike was cheering for them as well.

• 40:07Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  And you come around to now and now he's a part owner of the, um, you know, the, the rivals down the road.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  Well, the book of feuds.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Exactly right. Yeah. So that part's probably not going to ever be in the book of feuds, I suspect.

• 40:16Speaker 00

  But is that's in here?

• 40:17Speaker 01

  That's in there.

• 40:17Speaker 00

  Oh, that's worth reading from that point of view. Maybe I should send out, uh, reach out to him and say, mate, like anytime you wanna come over, come over and have a beer with me. Where, where did they grow up?

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Look, that, that's a really interesting, um, part, part of the story as well. They, they complete chalk and cheese. Um, yeah. So, um, Scott, uh, you know, grew, grew up in Sydney's western suburbs. Castle Hill, yeah. Castle Hill, um, his, um, you know, his mum worked a couple of jobs, um, was it Target? Yeah, Macca's as well.

• 40:49Speaker 00

  High working, working.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, just normal working class people, yeah. You know, I think Scott describes, they went to the same spot every year for their annual family holiday. Again, pretty typical of, for a lot of, for how a lot of Australians grew up.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  Probably went up the central coast or something.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. Um, and, you know, Mike, um, from, you know, incredibly different, his, um, father, so Michael Cannonbrook's, um, senior was a successful banker, um, and he sort of made his name in Australia. Um, uh, he sort of got one of the original, um, banking licenses from Paul Keating, uh, for Citibank. So he was in charge of Citibank when they came to Australia. And they led quite a globe trotting lifestyle. Um, you know, uh, Mike, uh, was actually over in, uh, boarding school in England. And there's quite a, um, a, a, a nice, uh, nice little twist in, in the book.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Um, in that he used, um, the sort of an early frequent flyer miles, uh, flying from England and to Australia and back, uh, to actually get his first PC computer. Uh, so that's sort of, you know, when he was, you know, still a kid essentially, um, but he.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  Were they child prodigies?

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Oh, they, they, they were, they were smart for sure. Yeah, yeah. Um, look, Mike, Mike was, um, you know, I don't, I don't think he sort of topped every class or anything like that, but, but certainly, um, when it came to coding and some of that tech stuff, um, he was very good at it. And, and Scott, um, out at James Russe.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, selective, selective high school.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  High school, he, he was, um, yeah, he, he was a real scholar, um, and, uh, and, you know, scouts as well, uh, I think was, was part of his, you know, big, big passion.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  Sounds like a, a, a full on old time school, old school Aussie.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 42:48Speaker 00

  James Russe High, live out in Castle Hill, went to see the scouts.

• 42:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  His mum worked a couple of jobs.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:55Speaker 00

  Put, make ends meet.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, you know, Scott, Scott has talked about when he sort of first went to the eastern suburbs, you know, uh, you know, he probably could never have imagined he'd buy a mansion in, in Point Piper. And he felt quite out of place, you know, if he'd go to someone's house or a party or something like that. That wasn't a world that Scott grew up in. And, you know, he, he, he can be quite awkward, um, still. Uh, you know, socially, um, you know, Mike's, uh, sort of, you know, very out there and, and, um.

• 43:28Speaker 00

  Confident.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, very, very confident. Um, you know, especially in the eastern suburbs, um, Scott's, uh, you know, a, a little bit different to that.

• 43:35Speaker 00

  What else is in there that I, we would not know about these two?

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Well, there's, um, I mean, the private jet stuff comes up a bit, you know, with Mike being the, the climate warrior.

• 43:44Speaker 00

  Both have one?

• 43:44Speaker 01

  No, Mike does. Um, so he bought, uh, you know, seventy five million dollar one, um, merged at the start of last year that he had one, uh, um, even after all these, um, you know, talking about, you know, um, carbon offsetting this, that and the other, and how we shouldn't be doing this. It turns out he, he bought a, a, you know, Bombardier as well.

• 44:01Speaker 00

  He still has one?

• 44:02Speaker 01

  Still has it. Uh, we, we charted, uh, you know, they, they'd gone around the world and gone to all these grand prix's because Atlassian now sponsors the Williams Grand Prix team.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Gone, uh, yeah, Paul Yer, he's done this. Yeah, absolutely. So they, they, they spent fifty million dollars a year on sponsorship. Absolutely. So there's the Grand Prix stuff as well.

• 44:19Speaker 00

  Oh, the Atlassian sponsors.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Atlassian sponsors it, yep.

• 44:22Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  So, um, yeah, they're a title sponsor for the Williams team now. So they've got the, so the private jet sort of thing comes out as well. So there's, he's, he's circumventing the world in his private jet, um, while, you know, talking about, you know, dirty coal, this, that and the other as well, carbon and so on. So there's things like that, that, that have emerged. There's the, the house stuff, uh, which we chart as well. Look, there's, there's a lot of these narratives that built up about them that, um, you know, you sort of just end up poking a few holes in, I suppose. Overall, the narrative is absolutely true. I mean, one of the things right, Atlassian, just before it floats, before, sorry, before it takes on its first outside funding, uh, from a company called ASIL, it takes on about sixty million dollars. They didn't need the money, but they decided to raise it because they want to eventually list, right?

• 45:06Speaker 01

  But the Atlassian gets hacked. It's an amazing story that Scott tells about the company gets hacked. I was on my honeymoon in Botswana and, um, you know, Mike had to call me and I, you know, someone drives in the, through the desert and they find me and, you know, they, they take me on this light plane and then I eventually get back to Sydney. And we're, you know, we're working, uh, all through the night to try and close the, the hacker, right? So it's a big moment in Atlassian's formative years, but no one ever knew this before. And we found out that it actually, it was Scott's password that gets hacked. He had a really easy to guess password, like the word password or something like that. And so that, you know, the, but these are the things, they have these great stories, but then they sort of leave out these little details that, you know, makes them look bad. So things like that.

• 45:48Speaker 00

  Well, you've got to manage your, your, um, your brand though, I guess. That makes sense.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  You too.

• 45:53Speaker 00

  I don't think there'd be too many successful people that were having stuffed it up, stuffed it up a lot of times.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  And it turns out it wasn't an issue either.

• 45:58Speaker 00

  Chapter twelve though, come on, who's, this is, this is like Joe Essent. I remember Joe called one of them is Double Bay Jesus and the pursuit of green future. Who's double, what's that mean? Double Bay Jesus?

• 46:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. So that, that's, uh, Mike Cannon-Brooks, um.

• 46:12Speaker 00

  Why, why Double Bay Jesus?

• 46:16Speaker 01

  Well, he had the long hair looking like, looking like Jesus and, and, you know, walking around in sandals in Double Bay, which is where, you know, that's, that's from Joe's, you know, original moniker that he, that he, that he termed him that because, and then he's walking around Double Bay and, you know, he's, he's this, he's the evangelist about climate change and so on. So, yeah.

• 46:32Speaker 00

  Evangelistic. Yeah, yeah. Now I get it.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Plus the look and the sandals and so on as well.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  I mean, that's, that's.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  I think even, yeah, he spotted just in bare feet a few times as well even.

• 46:43Speaker 00

  So, and, and what's, what's chapter eleven of Grok and Skip? What's that about?

• 46:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. So, um, so, so both Mike and Scott set up these, uh, family offices. Um, yeah. So Mike's, uh, got, uh, Grok, uh, Skip is, um, is, is Scott and his wife, uh, Kim. Um, Kim's, you know, actually sort of been the, the brains, um, behind a lot of it. Um, and that, that's quite an important part of the story. Um, we probably focus a little bit more on, uh, on Grok and, um, and then the family office there because it actually, um, becomes, uh, quite a corrosive, um, place to work. Uh, so Mike's own family office, which is used to invest his billions of dollars,

• 47:28Speaker 02

  um, actually, uh, becomes sort of connected to some of the bullying that's going on at Atlassian. And look, it, it probably goes a bit to what we've touched on. Um, you, you, you had this vision of quite a utopian tech culture, which I think a lot of tech companies really promote and have this narrative around. And actually, you know, over the years, that, that sort of dissolved a little bit. And, uh, you know, what, what you found is just some sort of base, you know, human, you know, greed and, and bullying. Um, you know, sort of, uh, you know, uh, ma- made that a bit destructive in the end.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Um, so, you know, one of the first things, um, uh, that happened after Scott left, um, after Scott stepped down as co-CEO is, um, some of the so-called assassins, um, who, this sort of tight group of, uh, women that, that, uh, worked near Mike said, oh, you know, yay, we can all fly business class. They, they, they're only on economy before that. Once Scott was out the door, business class, um, and then, you know, obviously Mike got the jet and the Formula One sponsorship. And we've had multiple people tell us none of that would have happened under Scott's watch. Um, in fact, I, I, I don't think the private jet would have happened either, um, even though that's Mike's own money.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  Um, I think, you know, all of a sudden the, uh, uh, you know, it was unleashed that they could sort of do what they like with the money.

• 49:04Speaker 00

  Well, it's, it's, it's, I'm glad you guys came because it's actually, it's, it's an interesting yarn.

• 49:14Speaker 00

  I, but I really think there's a, a deeper underlying theme that's coming out of this is that we're all subject to human temptations. We're all subject to human frailties and errors and et cetera. And, um, even the best of us, the best of friends, um, things can come between us. Um, based on principles and, um, external, you know, external influences that we may or may not have. From what you're telling me, it's real. Um, you're not making judgements on anybody. You're just saying, these things happen, you know, and as an Aussie saying, we'd say shit happens and it does. But this is just, this is just, um, turbocharged.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, because of the money.

• 50:00Speaker 00

  Because the size of everything's bigger.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Correct. Yeah. The houses are bigger, the, the money, the stakes bigger.

• 50:06Speaker 00

  But it happens, but it happens at lots of different levels. It could happen at a hundred and fifty thousand dollar house. If you bought it next door to your best mate or your brother or your sister for that matter. And none of us are perfect, I guess, at the end of the day. And this sort of is a great example of it. Um, what appears to be perfect largely is imperfect. I think the most important part is they are, it is a great company and there's two guys who created something amazing. But to some extent, um, I feel sorry for them that it's, hasn't turned out that way over the twenty year period or the ten year period, wherever it is, the period, that they've been confronted with these challenges,

• 50:47Speaker 00

  some of which has sort of changed the relationship or the nature of the relationship that, that they have. So well done. Um, it's tech bros. Um, what started off for me is a, was going to be a yarn, has actually made me think about stuff. Um, and, uh, and basically no one's immune. Well done.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Thanks, Mark.

• 51:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks very much.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  You're welcome.