Career
In 2001, Mike Cannon-Brookes sent an email to his University of New South Wales classmates asking if any of them were interested in helping him launch a tech startup after graduation,[12] and Farquhar was the only one who responded. They founded Atlassian in 2002.[13][14][15] They bootstrapped the company for several years, financing the startup with a $10,000 credit card debt.[16]
Their first major Atlassian product was Jira, an issue- and project-tracking software. 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.[17] As of 2016, the company still did not have a traditional sales force, investing instead in research and development.[18]
In 2005, they opened an office in New York, where most of their clients were.[17] Later in 2005 they moved the U.S. office to San Francisco,[19] which had a much larger pool of relevant technical talent.[17]
Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes were recognised with the award of the 2006 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.[20]
Their first external funding for Atlassian was a $US60 million round from Accel in 2010.[21]
In 2014, they redomiciled the company to the UK, in advance of an IPO.[22]
On 10 December 2015, Atlassian made its initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq stock exchange,[23] putting the market capitalization of Atlassian at $4.37 billion.[24] The IPO made Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes Australia's first tech startup billionaires and household names in Australia.[14][25][26]
In 2022, Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes redomiciled Atlassian to the United States.[22]
On 26 April 2024, Farquhar announced that he would resign as joint CEO of Atlassian at the end of August to focus on family time, philanthropy, and furthering the global technology industry.[27] He remains on the board and as a special adviser.[28] As of 2024, he owns 20 percent of Atlassian.[29]
