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Mike Cannon-Brookes

Co-Founder and CEO, Atlassian · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveinvestor@mcannonbrookes ↗LinkedIn ↗atlassian.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

He co-founded enterprise software giant Atlassian in 2002 alongside Scott Farquhar, scaling products like Jira, Confluence, and Trello globally. Outside of software, he is an active climate-tech investor known for backing Sun Cable and driving shareholder campaigns to accelerate decarbonization.

9statements → 2claims → 1claims resolved → 4.11/5average certainty → 1.67/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 3said about them ↓

0 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 assertions · 5 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Mike argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Mike Cannon-Brookes on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Mike Cannon-Brookes said on How I Built This that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Cannon-Brookes says demonstrating direct product value eliminates the need for sales reps
“If you can demonstrate value to someone We had to figure out how to sell things online. And once we had done that and saw the effect of that patience, all we did is kind of continue to double down on that model every year, right? We would hire more engineers i…”
Mike Cannon-Brookes Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 56:54 Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
Insight
Cannon-Brookes explains how enterprise software virality spreads through cross-functional team members
“We want to get one team to solve one problem with our application brilliantly, because most people in companies don't work on one team. They actually work on three or four different teams and different projects, different things.”
Mike Cannon-Brookes Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 46:18 Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
Insight
Cannon-Brookes argues distributed teams should use in-person gatherings exclusively for social bonding
“Do the work at home when you're remote from each other, and when you're meeting, build the social bonds, go out to dinner, like run exercises, whatever you're going to do, but don't meet to do work.”
Mike Cannon-Brookes Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 1:08:04 Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
Insight
Cannon-Brookes argues startup leaders must scale their capabilities faster than company growth
“If our business is going to double every two years, as individuals and as leaders, we can only justify our positions if we are more than doubling our capabilities every two years. Because logically, otherwise, you end up with a kind of constraint at the top, r…”
Mike Cannon-Brookes Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 51:38 Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
Assertion Partly supported
Cannon-Brookes sold his first startup to competitor Blink for hundreds of thousands
“Anyway, Blink raised thirty-five million dollars. And we were sitting in Sydney and we were just like, holy shit, we're gonna get smoked. There's no way. So we called up the two or three guys that had raised a big bunch of money and said, look, we got a couple…”
Mike Cannon-Brookes Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 13:55 Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
Disclosure
Cannon-Brookes' father passed on investing in Atlassian after an early startup underperformed
“The worst, or the funniest part about that story, my dad would hate me saying this, is he, I think my dad put in five or 10 grand, and you know, barely got his money back kind of thing, and decided that maybe I wasn't worth backing, and so he never invested in…”
Mike Cannon-Brookes Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 14:31 Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
Insight
Cannon-Brookes says developer tools provide an entry point to larger enterprise markets
“It turns out there's way more non-software developers in a company to sell to than there are software developers, but this is still a great sort of entry into the company, if you like.”
Mike Cannon-Brookes Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 32:09 Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
Disclosure
Cannon-Brookes says Atlassian remained completely founder-owned with zero funding after eight years
“We had taken no, no, no capital, no investment. we still owned a hundred percent of the company.”
Mike Cannon-Brookes Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 58:39 Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cannon-Brookes acquired his first computer at age eight using frequent flyer points
“So I was flying from Sydney to London four times a year back and forth and racking up lots of frequent fly points as a seven year old, eight year old, nine year old. And my parents gave me the catalog one, you know, Christmas or end of year and said, Hey, you …”
Mike Cannon-Brookes Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 7:34 Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar

The other half of the tape: Mike Cannon-Brookes's own voice is left out of every number here. 3 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Statements about Mike Cannon-Brookes, by other people (3)

Disclosure
Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes originally just wanted a $48,500 salary without wearing suits
“The thesis was if we can earn 48,500 dollars and not have to wear a suit to work and a tie to work and work with, you know, kind of average people, then, you know, we've won.”
Scott Farquhar Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 19:31 Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Atlassian's first shareholder agreement designated rock-paper-scissors to resolve founder disputes
“And we put in Rochambeau or rock, paper, scissors into our shareholders agreement. And so it's changed now. We're a public company. We can't solve problems like that anymore. But you know, for the first few years, if we disagreed it would have ended up at rock…”
Scott Farquhar Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 24:38 Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
Disclosure
Atlassian co-founders paid themselves just $300 weekly for their first two years
“We didn't pay ourselves for a long time, and even after that, I think we paid ourselves 300 dollars a week for the first two years, so we were relatively inexpensive.”
Scott Farquhar Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 32:56 Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar Feb 8, 2021 24m
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