Mike Cannon-Brookes

Michael Cannon-Brookes (born 17 November 1979) is an Australian businessman 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.

Early life and education
Michael Cannon-Brookes was born on 17 November 1979, the son of a global banking executive, also named Mike, and his wife, Helen. He attended Cranbrook School in Sydney, and graduated from the University of New South Wales with a bachelor's degree in information systems on a UNSW co-op scholarship.

Career
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. 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.

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.

Their first external funding for Atlassian was a US$60 million round from Accel in 2010. In 2014, they redomiciled the company to the UK, in advance of an initial public offering (IPO).

Atlassian made its debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange in December 2015, with a market capitalisation of $4.37 billion. The IPO made Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar Australia's first tech startup billionaires and household names in Australia.

Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar redomiciled Atlassian to the United States in 2022. In March that year, Cannon-Brookes and billionaire Andrew Forrest invested in the Sun Cable project, to build a solar and battery farm 12000 ha 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, Cannon-Brookes' company Grok Ventures outbid Forrest and others to buy the liquidated company.

Climate activism
Cannon-Brookes is a major investor in green projects.

In March 2017, following a series of power outages in South Australia, Cannon-Brookes challenged Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Twitter to deliver the Hornsdale Power Reserve Battery - the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery, within 100 days to solve the state’s energy problems.

In October 2021, Cannon-Brookes 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.

Cannon-Brookes started Grok Ventures in 2016 as a private investing vehicle. In February 2024, it was announced that Grok Ventures had appointed Tan Kueh as CEO, and that the organisation was accepting third party capital to drive a bigger impact on climate change.

Grok Ventures is focused on climate tech, venture and infrastructure, and lighthouse investments.

In March 2022, Cannon-Brookes (through Grok Ventures) 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.

In 2023, Grok Ventures purchased a majority stake in Australian publicly listed energy company AGL, Australia’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, in a move to force the company to de-carbonise more quickly.

Sports
In December 2020, Cannon-Brookes bought a minority stake in NBA team Utah Jazz, along with Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith.

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.

Other
Cannon-Brookes is an adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales' School of Computer Science and Engineering.

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.

Personal life
Cannon-Brookes married American fashion designer Annie Todd in 2010, and they have four children together. The couple first met at a Qantas lounge while flying from Sydney to San Francisco. Cannon-Brookes and Todd lived in Sydney's eastern suburbs in. 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. 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. His Centennial Park home sold for A$16.5 million. In 2019 he purchased a house near Fairwater for A$12 million. Cannon-Brookes separated from his wife Annie in July 2023.

Recognition
Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar were recognised as Ernst & Young's 2006 Australian Entrepreneur of the Year. He is a member of The Forum of Young Global Leaders.

Net worth
In 2016, his net worth was estimated by Forbes on the list of Australia's 50 Richest people as US$1.69 billion; by BRW Rich 200 as A$2.00 billion; and by the Sunday Times Rich List as GB£906 million. , the Australian Financial Review estimated his net worth was A$19.01 billion. Meanwhile, in 2021, his net worth was assessed at US$13.7 billion by Forbes and at US$11.2 billion by Bloomberg.