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Michael Cannon-Brookes (born 17 November 1979) is an Australian businessman who is the co-founder and chief executive officer of the software company Atlassian.
Mike Cannon-Brookes | |
|---|---|
 Cannon-Brookes in 2018 | |
| Born | Michael Cannon-Brookes 17 November 1979 New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Education | Cranbrook School |
| Alma mater | University of New South Wales |
| Occupation | CEO of Atlassian |
| Employer |
|
| Known for | Co-founding Atlassian |
| Board member of | Atlassian |
| Spouse(s) |
Annie Todd
(m. 2010; sep. 2023) |
| Children | 4 |
| Awards |
|
| Website | atlassian |
Since 2018, he has been involved in the Australia-Asia Power Link, a huge electricity infrastructure project to be developed in the Northern Territory by Sun Cable in a collaboration with the Australian businessman Twiggy Forrest.
Michael Cannon-Brookes was born on 17 November 1979 in Connecticut, US.[1][2][3] The son of a global banking executive, also named Mike, and his wife Helen, he is the youngest of three siblings, with two sisters.[4][3] His family relocated to Taiwan when he was six months old, and to Hong Kong when he was three; he later attended boarding school in England.[3][5] He attended Cranbrook School in Sydney,[6] and graduated from the University of New South Wales[7] with a bachelor's degree in information systems on a UNSW co-op scholarship.[8][9]
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Before founding Atlassian, Cannon-Brookes co-founded an internet bookmark management tool called The Bookmark Box with his university classmate Niki Scevak. The Bookmark Box was sold to Blink.com in 2000.[5]
Cannon-Brookes co-founded Atlassian, a collaboration software company, of which he is co-CEO, with Scott Farquhar. The pair started the company in 2002, shortly after graduating from university, funding it with credit cards.[10] They have said they founded Atlassian with the aim of earning the then-typical graduate starting salary of A$48,000 at the big corporations without having to work for someone else.[11][12]
Their first major Atlassian product was Jira, an issue- and project-tracking software.[13] They decided to forgo the expense of hiring sales people, and instead spent their time and money on building a good product and selling it at a more affordable price via the Atlassian website.[13] As of 2016, the company still did not have a traditional sales force, investing instead in research and development.[14]
In 2005, they opened an office in New York, where most of their clients were.[13] Later in 2005 they moved the U.S. office to San Francisco,[15] which had a much larger pool of relevant technical talent.[13]
Their first external funding for Atlassian was a US$60 million round from Accel in 2010.[16] In 2014, they redomiciled the company to the UK, in advance of an initial public offering (IPO).[17]
Atlassian made its debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange in December 2015,[18] with a market capitalisation of $4.37 billion.[19] The IPO made Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar Australia's first tech startup billionaires and household names in Australia.[20][21][22]
Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar redomiciled Atlassian to the United States in 2022.[17] Since September 2024, Cannon-Brookes is the sole CEO of the company after Farquhar stepped down as co-CEO.[23][24] As of 2024[update], he owns approximately 20% of Atlassian, with super-voting shares.[25]
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Cannon-Brookes started Grok Ventures in 2016 as a family office.[26] He is a major investor in green projects through his private investing vehicle.[27] In October 2021, he pledged to donate and invest $1.5 billion on climate projects by 2030 to reinforce the COP26 goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.[28]
Cannon-Brookes is an adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales' School of Computer Science and Engineering.[29] He is also the chairman of Blackbird Ventures, a venture capital firm.[30]
In September 2020, it was revealed that Cannon-Brookes was among 35,000 Australians on a Chinese Government "Overseas Key Individuals Database" of prominent international individuals of interest for China.[31][32]
In March 2022, Cannon-Brookes and billionaire Andrew Forrest invested in the Sun Cable project, to build a solar and battery farm 12,000 hectares (120 km2) in size at Powell Creek, Northern Territory, and a power-cable to link it to Singapore (via Indonesia) leaving Australia at Murrumujuk beach. In January 2023, Sun Cable went into administration owing to disagreements between Cannon-Brookes and Forrest, and in May 2023, Grok Ventures outbid Forrest and others to buy the liquidated company.[33][34]
In 2022, Cannon-Brookes became the largest shareholder of the Australian publicly listed energy company AGL, Australia's largest greenhouse gas emitter, in a move to force the company to de-carbonise more quickly.[35][36]
Sports
In December 2020, Cannon-Brookes bought a minority stake in NBA team Utah Jazz, along with Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith.[37]
In November 2021, Cannon-Brookes bought a one-third share of Blackcourt League Investments. Blackcourt owns 75% of the Australian Rugby League team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs.[38][39]
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Cannon-Brookes married American fashion designer Annie Todd in 2010, and they have four children together.[40][41] The couple first met at a Qantas lounge while flying from Sydney to San Francisco.[42] Cannon-Brookes and Todd lived in Sydney's eastern suburbs in Centennial Park.[12] In 2018 they bought Fairwater, Australia's most expensive house for approximately A$100 million, next door to Scott Farquhar's A$71 million Point Piper harbourside mansion, Elaine. Cannon-Brookes also acquired the 1923-built heritage residence Verona, designed by architect Leslie Wilkinson and located in Double Bay, for A$17 million.[43] The house previously belonged to New Zealand philanthropist Pat Goodman. Prior to that, in 2016, Cannon-Brookes had bought the A$7.05 million SeaDragon house, built in 1936, also designed by Wilkinson and updated by architect Luigi Rosselli.[44] His Centennial Park home sold for A$16.5 million.[45] In 2019 he purchased a house near Fairwater for A$12 million.[46] Cannon-Brookes separated from his wife Annie in July 2023.[40]
Recognition
Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar were recognised as Ernst & Young's 2006 Australian Entrepreneur of the Year.[47] He is a member of The Forum of Young Global Leaders.[8] In 2023, he was recognized as one of the "Time100 climate person" [48]
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In 2016, his net worth was estimated by Forbes on the list of Australia's 50 Richest people as US$1.69 billion;[49] by BRW Rich 200 as A$2.00 billion;[50] and by the Sunday Times Rich List as £906 million.[51] As of May 2023[update], the Australian Financial Review estimated his net worth was A$19.01 billion.[52] Meanwhile, in 2021, his net worth was assessed at US$13.7 billion by Forbes and at US$11.2 billion by Bloomberg.[53]
| Year | BRW Rich 200 |
Forbes Australia's 50 Richest |
Sunday Times Rich List | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Net worth (A$) | Rank | Net worth (US$) | Rank | Net worth (£) | |
| 2013[54][55] | 190  |
$0.25 billion |
n/a | not listed | ||
| 2014[56][57] | 35 |
$1.07 billion |
n/a | not listed | ||
| 2015[58][59] | 42  |
$1.14 billion |
25 |
$1.10 billion |
||
| 2016[50][49][51] | 18 |
$2.00 billion |
14 |
$1.69 billion |
£906 million | |
| 2017[60][61] | 17 |
$2.51 billion |
10 |
$3.40 billion |
||
| 2018[62] | 12 |
$5.16 billion |
5 |
|||
| 2019[63][64][65] | 6 |
$9.63 billion |
5  |
$6.40 billion |
||
| 2020[66] | 5 |
$16.93 billion |
||||
| 2021[67][53] | 3 |
$20.18 billion |
$13.70 billion |
|||
| 2022 | 3 |
$27.80 billion |
||||
| 2023[52] | 6 |
$19.01 billion |
||||
| Legend | |
|---|---|
| Icon | Description |
|
Has not changed from the previous year |
|
Has increased from the previous year |
|
Has decreased from the previous year |
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