Michael Cannon-Brookes (born November 1979) is an Australian billionaire business magnate who is the co-founder, and co-CEO of software company 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 Twiggy Forrest.
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The majority of Cannon-Brookes’ fortune is derived from a 22% stake in Atlassian, a developer of enterprise software. The Sydney-based company is publicly traded in New York and has more than 200,000 customers, according to its website.
He holds the shares directly and via closely held holding company CBC Co, according to the 2022 annual report. Cannon-Brookes’ stake is held in Class B shares and represents 49.7% of the non-traded stock. His co-founder, Scott Farquhar, controls another 49.7% of the Class B shares.
He also owns an 10% stake in Australian natural gas and electricity provider AGL Energy, according to the 2023 annual report. AGL operates the largest collection of electricity generation assets in Australia, according to its website.
The value of his cash holdings is based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, taxes and market performance.
Scott Rubin, a spokesman for Atlassian, declined to comment on Cannon-Brookes’s net worth.
Biography
Education: University of New South Wales
Mike Cannon-Brookes was born in 1979 in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Michael Cannon-Brookes, was a finance executive who worked for U.S.-based firms.
Mike attended Cranbrook School in Sydney, whose former pupils include fellow billionaire James Packer. He began studying for a Bachelor of Commerce in information systems degree at the University of New South Wales in 1998.
Cannon-Brookes met classmate Scott Farquhar during his university studies and the pair founded Atlassian in 2002. The enterprise software company offers services to software developers and project managers.
Atlassian grew quickly and by 2010 had sold a minority stake to venture capital firm Accel Partners for $60 million. It sold $462 million in new shares in a 2015 initial public offering in New York. The IPO valued Atlassian at more than $4 billion.
Cannon-Brookes lives in Sydney with his wife.
Milestones
- 1979 Mike Cannon-Brookes is born.
- 2001 Invites Scott Farquhar to join him in starting a company.
- 2002 Co-founds Atlassian.
- 2006 Named Ernst & Young’s Australian Entrepreneur Of The Year.
- 2010 Company gets $60 million from venture capital firm Accel Partners.
- 2015 Atlassian raises $462 million in IPO.
- 2017 Revenue for full year to June exceeds $600 million for first time.
- 2017 Challenges Elon Musk to help solve South Australia’s power problems.
Career
With Scott Farquhar, Cannon-Brookes is the co-founder and co-CEO of Atlassian, a collaboration software company. The pair started the company in 2002, shortly after graduating from university, funding it with credit cards. They claim to have 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.
In March 2022, it was reported that Cannon-Brookes and billionaire Andrew Forrest had 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. In May 2023, Cannon-Brookes’ company Grok Ventures outbid Forrest and others to buy the liquidated company.
Other activities
Cannon-Brookes is an adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales’ School of Computer Science and Engineering.
In December 2020, Cannon-Brookes bought a minority stake in NBA team Utah Jazz, along with Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith.
Cannon-Brookes is a major investor in Australian publicly listed energy company AGL.
In September 2020, it was revealed that Cannon-Brookes was listed on a Chinese Government “Overseas Key Individuals Database” of prominent international individuals of interest for China.
