Scott Farquhar

Scott Farquhar (born December 1979) is an Australian businessman who is the co-founder and co-chief executive officer of software company Atlassian. Farquhar often carries the epithet of accidental billionaire after he and his business partner Mike Cannon-Brookes founded Atlassian with the aim to replicate the A$48,500 graduate starting salary typical at corporations without having to work for someone else.

Scott is a member of Technology Council of Australia.

Early life

Farquhar was born in December 1979. He attended James Ruse Agricultural High School and Castle Hill Primary School and graduated from the University of New South Wales, with a Bachelor of Science (BIT).

Career

In 2001, Mike Cannon-Brookes sent an email to his University of New South Wales classmates asking if any of them was interested in helping him launch a tech startup after graduation, and Farquhar was the only one who responded. They founded Atlassian in 2002. They bootstrapped the company for several years, financing the startup with a $10,000 credit card debt.

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. As of 2016, the company still did not have a traditional sales force, investing instead in research and development.

In 2005, they opened an office in New York, where most of their clients were. Later in 2005 they moved the U.S. office to San Francisco, which had a much larger pool of relevant technical talent.

Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes were recognised for their achievements with Ernst & Young's 2006 Australian Entrepreneur of the Year.

Their first external funding for Atlassian was a $US60 million round from Accel in 2010.

In 2014, they redomiciled the company to the UK, in advance of an IPO.

On 10 December 2015, Atlassian made its initial public offering (IPO) on the NASDAQ stock exchange, putting the market capitalization of Atlassian at $4.37 billion. The IPO made Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes Australia's first tech startup billionaires and household names in Australia.

In 2022, Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes redomiciled Atlassian to the United States.

Farquhar has mentored through the Australian Businesswomen's Network and gives guest lectures on entrepreneurship to MBA students and undergraduates.

Farquhar is a significant investor in tech startups through a privately held investment fund, Skip Capital. As of 2021, the fund had a stake in four Australian tech unicorns, including Canva and Airwallex; along with overseas firms, such as Talkdesk, a provider of cloud-based contact centre software based in San Francisco.

On 26 April 2024, Farquhar announced his resignation as joint CEO of Atlassian to focus on family time, philanthropy, and furthering the global technology industry.

Personal life

He is married to Kim Jackson and they have three sons. In 2017 Farquhar purchased from the Fairfax family its former ancestral Sydney harbourside home, Elaine, for approximately A$75 million. The Point Piper home set on 6,986 square metres (75,200 sq ft) had been in the ownership of the Fairfax family since 1891 and was vacant for nearly twenty years prior to its purchase by Farquhar. In 2020 it was reported that Farquhar plans a partial knock-down of unsympathetic renovations to Elaine, and rebuild a A$30 million contemporary home. In 2018 Cannon-Brookes bought the house next door, Fairwater, Australia's most expensive house at approximately A$100 million. In April 2022 Farquhar saved a man's life in Las Vegas.

In 2018, Farquhar spoke out against the Australian Government's renaming of the 457 visas, saying the move damages Australia's reputation as a place that people want to come to work.

Net worth

Alongside his business partner, Cannon-Brookes, Farquhar debuted on the 2007 BRW Young Rich list of the richest Australians aged 40 and under, and on the BRW Rich 200 in 2013 with an estimated net worth of A$250 million. In 2016, his net worth was estimated by Forbes on the list of Australia's 50 Richest people as US$1.75 billion; by BRW Rich 200 as A$2.00 billion; and by the Sunday Times Rich List as £906 million. As of 2019, Farquhar was ranked fifth in the Forbes list of Australia's 50 Richest people with a net worth of US$6.40 billion. He was ranked seventh on the Financial Review 2023 Rich List with a net worth of A$18.16 billion.

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