Straight Talk with Mark Bouris

00:00 John Stence Holder and Perry Williams, welcome to Straight Talk. Thanks for having us. And I've got your book, Tech Bros. Is that you two? 00:07 He's dressed as a tech pro, just for you. 00:09 You are sort of channeling tech. I dress for the occasion, Mark, yeah, just to get into character. 00:16 But maybe you could tell me what, or tell the audience, by the way, what you both do anyway, day to day, as opposed to writing a book. 00:23 We both work for the Australian newspaper. I edit the richest 250 lists and I've been writing about wealthy and famous people for a long time and a bit of sports business. Yeah, Perry. 00:34 And I'm chief business correspondent at The Australian. Cover a little bit of everything, you know, day-to-day markets, financial dramas, and most recently, you know, I've been a tech reporter of sorts with tech bros. Are you guys tech-style people, though? 00:52 Oh, look, if you look at the amount of gray hair I've got, Mark, probably say that not really. Look, how tech savvy do you need to be these days? You do need to be tech savvy, you're right. But I mean, these guys have been around for 25 years, right? So probably charted them all the way up. So probably around about the same age as these guys. Have you been following them for a long time? Yeah, absolutely. Pretty much almost since day one, since they emerged. I used to be at BOW magazine. They were on the, yeah, remember the young rich list and stuff like that, the fast starters. They were for sure. Yeah. 01:21 Yep. Absolutely. Okay. I remember those days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You took over the BOW. Yep. Actually, I remember pleading with him to get me out of the BOW. It was probably me that put you on, Mark. Sorry. Many years ago. It's not the place you want to be, I can tell you. But it's interesting enough. So you've been following for a long time, right back to the BOW days. Mm-hmm. 01:41 I'll be honest with you. 01:43 Until the last couple of years, I reckon most people I know never heard of them. 01:48 Yeah, it's probably the software thing, isn't it? If you don't use their software, and it's not really like a consumer product in that way, you wouldn't know. But they've probably become a bit more famous for stuff outside their business. 02:00 Yeah, well, I started to know about Cannon Brooks as a result of his South Sydney sort of forays, for obvious reasons. I'm not for the roosters. But Farquaad... 02:10 You don't hear boo about him. You never hear about him at all. 02:14 All of a sudden, they're both worth $25 billion each kind of thing. So they're in that rich list sphere in the business world. But yeah, they've elevated themselves outside of Australia, I suppose, in that way. 02:24 Maybe you could tell us, give me a little bit of color about Atlassian, Perry. Maybe you could just sort of tell me where's the name come from for a start, but what does Atlassian do? 02:35 I mean, can do I get? Yeah, great question. Look, they've got a couple of products, JIRA, and Confluence, again, not household names. But what they do is they essentially allow companies, you know, big corporates, you know, blue chip clients and so on to be able to, you know, effectively kind of manage big projects, tasks, workflows throughout an entire company. Essentially, what they were able to do was – have different teams, different people all talking to each other and basically link it all up into a single product. 03:20 And obviously, they started really in the early days of the dot-com boom. 03:27 So back in the late 90s, early 2000s? 03:30 Yeah, early 2000s. 03:33 And probably one of the most impressive things is actually the core products which they came up with in those early years are actually still their core products now. They still account for most of their pretty extraordinary... A bit like Microsoft, I guess, in some respects, because Microsoft 360... 03:54 is pretty much a similar sort of product to what they've always had. Nothing has really changed that much. 03:59 I mean, there's been iterations of it, but it's basically the same core thing. It's an operating system, effectively. 04:06 I was about to say, John, remind me of the name, where the name came from. 04:11 Oh, Atlassian. Yeah. Well, it's all about Atlas and having the world on your shoulders kind of thing, the burden of the world on your shoulders. They started as a service business, right? Just out of their party house in Glebe, which is one of the narratives in the book about they were basically taking phone calls from overseas and they were like, they wanted to provide superior service and like the best service in the world. So Atlas, you know, the sort of the Greek god, you know, the world on their shoulders. We're going to provide Atlassian style service. So the best in the world, you know, we're going to support, we're going to support people. 04:45 And that was, that, that was where the name came from. It's a pretty catchy name to be fair. Yeah. No, no, no, no. So I am like Atlas. Yes. 04:52 I'm Atlassian. Correct. That's the idea of it. Yeah. Because Atlas got demoted to that position to carry the world on his shoulders. That was as a result of him having a misdemeanor. And he had to carry that for the rest of his- It was a immense burden, wasn't it? Yeah. It was a burden for the rest of his, whatever his godly life was going to be. 05:13 So I get it. And were they technologists? 05:16 Yeah. They both went to university together. So this is the great story. So they went to the uni of New South Wales. 05:23 They were in a tech course. It was a pretty, you know, back in the, they started in the late 90s and they graduated in the early 2000s. So around that time, you know, these sort of tech commerce kind of degrees, they're still, you know, pretty, they're kind of fledgling in a way. So they meet at uni, you know, they have that uni life. We're in the same class and, you know, Scott sort of, the guy who mixes all the drinks and the alcohol and they have a great time. And he's the guy that, you know, doing the parties for the class. But they are tech nerds, right? So they're tech nerds together. 05:54 And it gets to a stage where they're about to graduate. The tech crash has happened. 06:00 And they're like, oh, what are we going to do next? Are we going to go off and do a graduate role at KPMG or one of these places for, it was $48,500 a year was going to be the graduate program. 06:11 And Mike famously goes, well, I don't want to do that. 06:16 Does anyone in the class want to run their own business? So he sends out an email to everyone. And Scott's the only guy that replies. Yeah, well, let's have a crack. They didn't know each other, so to speak. Well, they did. They did. But they weren't besties. Yeah, yeah. But they were around the same circles. So they were in the same class and that sort of stuff. So definitely were known to each other. But that's how the famous story. So it all starts with an email. Wow. 06:37 Why did you guys write the book then? 06:39 Well, we were doing some investigations last year at The Australian and to fast forward to the year before last, Scott leaves the business pretty suddenly and steps down as co-CEO after they've created this amazing, and it was worth a hundred odd US billion dollars only a few years ago, right? So it's amazing sort of from nothing to this. And the whole narrative along the time was that they were great mates. They're literally collaboration software. Their ticker on the NASDAQ is team. So everything was about doing things together. They famously bought two houses together, Point Piper, which is a big part of the narrative in terms of how they bust up a bit later. 07:16 And we heard that maybe things weren't quite as they seem. So we go and do a bit of digging. It turns out that they had a few fallings out along the way. And Scott gets to the stage, even when Scott has his big farewell, Mike's not invited to the farewell. So we're like, well, what's going on here? And so we write a bunch of stories in the paper and then we get into a book a little while later and here we are. 07:38 So it's interesting how you guys find stuff out. I mean, I'm not asking you to divulge your sources, but what made you get interested in what these two guys are doing? Because the fact that they were multi-billionaires, they go from zero to a hundred billion and relatively speaking, short period? Or is it because they've done it through technology? Or was it because their personalities? Not the part where you heard they fell out, but just interest in Atlassian from the early days. 08:07 Yeah, well, it's a great story to start with, right, because they literally start with nothing. Well, you know, they start with a little bit more than nothing, which we detail, but they start with nothing. They build this amazing Australian, so global success story from Australia. Yeah. But also along the way, they've packed in so much other stuff, like Cannon Brooks becomes this climate sort of warrior. 08:25 Is he a climate warrior? Yeah, for sure. 08:28 He had a big tilt at AGL. Yeah, I remember that. His old idea was to turn the dirty coal business into a clean energy business, and it's still evolving. He buys into South Sydney. He buys into the Utah Jazz. Yeah, so he's in the NRL. He's in the NBA as well. 08:45 Farquhar does a whole bunch of other investments as well. They both have done a lot outside just their business, so we figured it was an interesting story, and we found out a hell of a lot more. Are they both... 08:57 sort of green warriors, environmental warriors? Yeah, look, I mean, Mike in particular, you know, really made himself like the face of a very sort of public campaign. You know, you remember Greta Thunberg, you know, and the school strikes for climate, you know, I think it was on Fridays, schools would shut down, all these climate Mike was passionately behind that. He sort of wanted Atlassian staff to take the day off and really show their climate stripes and so on. 09:35 And that led to his AGL energy investment. Scott probably had similar... 09:42 similar outlook on life, but I think for Scott, the main game was Atlassian and, you know, Mike all of a sudden had a lot of distractions and, you know, his main game kind of appeared to be, uh, you know, being a climate warrior. 09:58 Would you call him activist? Yeah. 10:01 With AGL they were, but yeah. 10:03 Yeah, I'd say he was an activist. 10:06 Sorry to interrupt, but was it just Mike on AGL or was Scott involved in that? No, just Mike. Just Mike. 10:12 So would you call him an activist? Yeah, look, it was an activist play on AGL. Yeah, just to go back, I mean, Mike, it was a bit of an unlikely pairing, teamed up with Brookfield, a big Canadian investor to take over AGL. Yeah. 10:30 Twice they got rebuffed and what Mike ended up doing is buying, you know, 11% stake in AGL and trying to sort of influence the company. He called it the biggest sort of fossil fuel project he could find in the world because, you know, he wanted to get inside the company and change it. So, yeah, I think that's almost the definition of activist. 10:54 It seems to me that one was more... 10:58 activist, more active than the other one? Or maybe is, or is that just my, is that just from gleaning publicly? 11:05 That's probably goes to their personalities too, right? So, you know, yeah, absolutely. Mike was more public. He was using social media. He was talking to Elon Musk on Twitter, now ex, you know, back in the, they did this battery deal in South Australia. I remember that. Yeah. So he's doing things like that. He's, he's going after. That wasn't a bad deal. Yeah, absolutely. It was a great deal. It was admirable. Yeah, and going after Scott Morrison about Cole, using social media a lot, using the platform that he had from the money that he's made to do that. Scott is a bit more of a quieter character, so he's a bit more like that's what he was investing in with his money. 11:36 He certainly probably held the same principles, but he was doing it more sort of like... 11:41 Like he was putting his money where his mouth probably wasn't, but he was still sort of behind it. So he was doing a lot of investing in or potential investing in infrastructure that would provide green energy or other things like that. So whereas Mike was a lot more out there. Yeah, he was on ABC. He was on television. He was doing 60 Minutes. He was doing all sorts of things like that. It was Scott... wasn't doing that publicly, and that's probably part of where they sort of started to diverge when it comes to Atlassian. 12:08 Scott and Mike, were they both running, they were co-CEOs of Atlassian, obviously co-founders, but co-CEOs of Atlassian. Was one responsible for one part of the business and the other was responsible for another part of the business? Are they different skill sets? 12:23 They actually swapped around duties. You've got to imagine this happened over a couple of decades. They both had their strengths, but they did consciously try and move it around a little bit, so they continued testing themselves. But... 12:46 I think probably as the money and the riches started to flow in, you kind of had this situation where there was sort of a Team Mike and a Team Scott that emerged within Atlassian. Within the business. Yeah, within the business. And I think that became sort of quite awkward and quite difficult to handle as well. You sort of had... Mike sort of being the more outgoing personality, probably attracted a certain, you know, following, I guess, you know, within the company. 13:19 And Scott being a bit quieter, probably cracked the whip a little bit more, very cost conscious. You know, this is from us, you know, sort of talking to sort of dozens of people who've worked there, you know, kept a really tight rein on budgets and so on. And you started to kind of see a little bit of a divergence there. 13:39 So for people like yourself, when you see, let's call it a split, is that what sort of interests you? Is that sort of fertile ground? 13:50 But I think you've probably seen this in your business life, Mark, and certainly John and I have. I mean, you know, dozens of official announcements, you know, um, X person off to spend more time with their family, um, personal reasons, personal reasons. And, you know, you, you, you read it and, you know, you're left sort of scratching your head. Occasionally someone gets to the bottom of what really went on. Often they don't. Um, and, you know, I think that's, where our stories and the book started. 14:24 We heard a few whispers that there was a little bit more to Scott standing down, and that's really where it started. I'd done a lot of reporting with a sort of energy hat on, so I was quite familiar with Mike from an energy perspective, John obviously charting the two billionaires, and It was this over-the-fence sort of barney over a renovation, which is where we kind of started calling people. 14:58 You heard about that. 14:59 Yeah. You did hear about that, and that's when you started calling. 15:02 Yeah, that's when we started calling. Yeah. 15:05 The really interesting thing was, you know, we started where the houses are in the eastern suburbs. We started calling around. Let's talk about that. So what do they do? 15:15 Do they go and buy what? So, yeah, just a mere $170 million spent of two houses in Point Piper. Two houses next door to each other? Yeah, Fairwater and Elaine. So one of them… So Farquaad buys Elaine first, $70 million, what was it, circa 2018-ish, and then a year later, Cannon Brooks buys the place next door for $100 million. Now, you know, and the narrative from them, and they're very good storytellers, right? You know, look, tech founders are a lot like that, Mark, as you know, like, you know, there's a founder story with a lot of people. You know, we do this, we meet here, and there's an inflection point here, and then they grow the company there. 15:48 And, you know, Elon Musk has a great story, and, you know, Tim Cook and all these people from, you know, All that sort of thing. So, there's that along the way. And then they're going to live happily ever after. Next door to each other. In Point Piper. Because they're best mates. 16:01 One of the houses they bought was Mary Fairfax's house. Yes, that's right. 16:03 So, they're both sort of Fairfax estates. 16:05 Who bought the Fairfax house? Mary Fairfax. Yeah. 16:07 So, there was- Lady Mary. Lady Mary. That was the $100 million one. So, yeah. So, Cannon Brooks buys that a year after Elaine next door that Scott had bought. So, they're going to live happily- And one was Vincent Fairfax's house. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Originally- And they were both record setters. Like, one was a record one year, then another one was... So the whole narrative was, we're going to live happily ever after together. The kids will knock down the fence between it. The kids can run around and so on and so forth. And the wives are going to have a cup of tea with each other. Correct. Yeah, that's right. Now, that's, you know, there were cracks there after a while too. But... And so you get to a stage where... 16:40 The houses were pretty run down in a rich mansion kind of sense, right? So Scott wants to do a big renovation on his, right? So $45 million reno. 16:48 So Scott wants to do it on his- Elaine. 16:51 Elaine, yeah. 16:52 Okay, so that's Vincent Fairfax's house. 16:54 And that was a bit more run down than one next door, right? 16:56 Because Bob Rose used to live there. 16:58 Yeah, right, okay. At one stage, yes. That was a while ago, right? Before, yeah. And then so, it puts the word out he wants to do a reno, right? So, $45 million reno, which is a pretty substantial revamp of what was there. So, you know, there's renders that are drawn up and the architects have a great, you know, great look at it and so on and so forth. But then, it very quickly turns out that the bloke next door, Well, the wife next door ain't too happy about the Renaults, which is a classic Australian thing, right? 17:26 So that's Ken and Brooks' wife. 17:27 Correct. And so who's next door? It's the Ken and Brooks'. So what's going on here? Aren't they talking to each other? I mean, what about the hole in the fence? Exactly. So what's happened here? Are they just saying go chat to each other about it? No, no, this is what happens internally at Atlassian as dozens of people tell us. Well, one gets surprised by the other. It even turns out that they're so worried about it that at one stage Annie gets scaffolding put up. Who's Annie? Annie is, sorry, Annie Cannon-Brooks, who's Mike's dead wife. They've split up since. So she's worried about the reno. 17:58 And you know, look, if you're getting a house built next door, is it going to cast a shadow or are they going to look into your bedroom? So she gets scaffolding put up. to show what it would look like. And she's horrified by this, right? So the word goes out pretty quickly that the neighbors, i.e., you know, the bloke that I'm working with as a co-CEO. My best mate. My best mate, allegedly, doesn't want us to do the reno. So they pulled it before they basically put it in. They were going to put it into council and it's gone. Oh, they didn't lodge the DA? No, they put out all the renders and talked about it to the media. 18:29 And then like, it's going to be lodged in the next couple of weeks. But, you know, word quickly got back to them. 18:36 that the neighbours didn't want it. 18:38 So the Cannon Brookses at the time, husband and wife at the time, they were going to object formally if this DA was lodged because of some impeachment or impingement, I should say, in relation to perhaps their privacy or something they didn't like the look of. By the way, we're talking about $45 million renovation. Yes. 19:00 That's not like a renovation. That's like... 19:03 It was a complete revamp of a historical house. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think there was maybe only a small element of the historic part that was going to be kept. And there was like a rooftop tennis court and all this sort of stuff. Whoa. 19:14 That's right. 19:15 Serious? Yeah. There was a big Renault. Just for context for people who don't know the spot. So it's on New South Head Road, but it's right on the waterfront. They both go down to the water. They've both got beaches in front of them. 19:29 And they probably, I can't remember how big Elaine was, but certainly Lady Mary Fairfax's house, whose home I'd been into many times, was probably sitting on a block of land close to an acre, something like that. It was like an enormous block of land. 19:45 Beautiful grounds, didn't it? Beautiful grounds. Functions held there. 19:48 Actually, my uncle, my dad's brother, Young's brother, was the groundsman. 19:52 Oh, wow. Oh, there you go. 19:53 Right up until, even after Mary passed away. Right. And it was between Charles and his sister. Yeah. And my uncle, Uncle Arthur, he was the groundsman there, and I often used to go and see him there. And my kids went to school across the road, and my kids used to see him after school and stuff like that, Uncle Arthur. And, yeah, so I knew the property quite well, and I'd been there to see Mary a few times after Warwick had passed away. And, yeah, so, and I got to meet the kids. It was an, actually, it's an amazing bit of land. 20:24 Like, yeah, probably as good as it gets. Yeah. The views are amazing. Amazing. And on the beach. Yeah. So, there was actually sand there. So, and the lane was something somewhat similar. So, what's interesting about this is that they both probably needed money spent on, but probably were underutilized in terms of the amount of space they got. Sure. You could probably put a whole lot more stuff there. Oh, yeah. 20:47 Yeah. 20:47 So Scott decided, him and his wife, I presume they're still married. Yes. 20:53 They decided that they're going to make the best of it. 20:56 Didn't lodge the DA in the end because their neighbors and his business partner were going to object to it. 21:03 Yep. So what happens then? Well, Scott and Kim Jackson and his wife don't end up living there. 21:10 And they never live there. They never live there. How much did they make for it? 70. 71, sorry. 71 million. Yep. They never live there. And then they, so they were renting another place for a while nearby and they ended up buying, is it pronounced Weeg Lodge, which is up the road for 130 million a couple of years ago. So that's where they live today. So do they still own Elaine? They've sold it to a developer that now... There was a consortium that put together that wanted to carve it up into four... What would you sort of say? Let's call it high-end sort of retirement, sort of aged care sort of facilities, which is still... 21:46 Still not, still, you know, the work is not underway there, and I don't think it even has the necessarily, you know, fast-tracked approvals or anything like that. So, it's just sitting there vacant. So, do the Canterbrook still own Fairwater? 22:00 Yes, yes. Again, it's vacant. I can sort of imagine the conversation, listen, if you're not going to approve it, we'll sell it to somebody else who will do it. 22:08 I mean, like... You won't have something worse next door. You're going to have something worse. Well, you will. You're going to have four lots of whatever they're going to have there. It's not a great outcome. Does the Canterbrooks ever move into Fairwater? 22:18 For a little bit. And it was so... I think it was so, you know, run down that, you know, cold that the story goes that they had to... It got so cold that they were wearing ski gear inside. Yeah, because it's a really old joint. It's a big old drafty place, right? Yeah, yeah. 22:31 And it's like massive ceilings and like huge entry foyers and, you know, like... Grand staircases. It's very grand, but it wouldn't have been built for a cold winter. Yeah, in a modern sort of Australian family. 22:45 The way we'd like to have it in a modern sense. So that's 70 as well. 22:48 So we've got what was then $170 million. It's probably worth much more now because property prices since that period. What year are we talking about? We're talking about 2019. Okay, seven years past. It's probably worth double. Sure. So we're talking about... We're talking about now $300-odd million worth of real estate just sitting there unlived in. Sorry, Scott sells the one that he bought for $71,000 for $130,000. It still won't be lived in. 23:17 Yeah, that's right. 23:19 Off the back of this so-called dispute. Sure, yeah. And then they've gone and spent the same amount of money buying other stuff in other places. Yep, yep. And meanwhile Mike and Annie have split up, and they both basically live in the Southern Highlands now. 23:35 They moved down to the Southern Highlands. 23:36 Yep. 23:38 And I mean, during, well, in the years after this period as well, Mike goes on this extraordinary property spree. 23:47 Buying property? Oh, buying property spree. Or all over a dozen houses? 23:53 It's 35 properties all up that we at least know of. Houses? Yeah, that's right. Properties, yes. There's plenty up Palm Beachway, north of Sydney and Southern Highlands as well. And also, obviously, Point Piper as well and others around it too. So, look, what... 24:10 It quickly emerged that, I mean, him and Annie split up a few years ago, and what they were doing was buying, effectively buying mansions side by side, right? Right. Okay. So, you know, kids could go between the two of them. There's several up. It's not dissimilar the way he wanted to live with Scott, though. Exactly. Like Palm Beachway, yeah, you know, have your summer up there. Yeah. Southern Highlands as well, and then you've got city bolt holes as well. So, yeah, 35, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars worth. Hey, how do they get them? 24:34 The company's listed on the NASDAQ. Yes. But how do they get their money out? I mean, do they sell stock? 24:39 Yeah. Yeah. So what happens, there's this, I won't bore you with the details of what it's actually called, but there's this stock selling plan. So they owned 80 odd percent of the company when it floats, right? So it's 2015, it's this amazing float, all of a sudden they're billionaires, paper, they're in their mid thirties and they sell off small slices every day to sort of give liquidity in the market. And also like, you know, there's stock employee stock options, right? They end up selling about $5 billion worth of stock over time. 25:10 Wow. So little, you know, it could be a million dollars, turned out to be a million dollars every day, some years. So they end up with about $5 billion in cash, takeoff tax or whatever tax they pay on that. They've still got billions of dollars and that's where they get property. They buy into the sports teams. Mike Cannon-Brooks eventually buys a private jet a couple of years ago, which was very controversial too. I want to talk about that. And there's all sorts of other things too. Scott ends up being one of the biggest airport investors here in Australia, individual. So he owns a slice of a bunch of Queensland airports and a whole bunch of other infrastructure things as well. 25:43 So they do a lot. They get a lot of money in. Mark, no one else has got this amount of money in cash over that time in Australian history. Like real money. Real money. Cash. Yep. And so that gives them this buying power to do all sorts of things. So one of the things I noticed about Mike... 26:03 He seems to be very close to Albanese. And it might have been the South Sydney connection because Albo was a director of South and that's his team. 26:11 Has your investigations sort of dug up the fact that he's more left-leaning, more Labour Party-leaning? 26:20 It's probably more teal-leaning, isn't it, now? Yeah, I think so, yeah. Look, you know, certainly with a lot of his renewable investments, his climate change advocacy, you know, some of that would chime in with Labour for sure. But, yeah, both Scott and Mike have donated to the teals. Oh, wow. And... 26:49 quite substantial amounts as well. So they've been, I guess it's in the areas where they live, right? And they've sort of been quite passionate about that. And they've also got their philanthropy skills um both of them have sort of slightly different ways of coming at that um and it's probably fair to say um still the bulk of that is is yet to come so they've um put some quite big numbers on the table for uh you know how they want to um ultimately you know give some of that money away but um It's, you know, perhaps in Mike's case, it's become a little bit complicated, you know, through the divorce proceedings, you know, which is still underway now. 27:34 You know, Scott and his wife Kim are proceeding down a different route as well. 27:39 Is the book, is it more, is it sort of like a yarn or is it a bit more like Joe Astin with the Qantas thing and with Joyce? Okay. 27:48 No, it's a yarn because they've done so many colourful things and there's so many colourful things that have happened to them. Because they're interesting characters. They're interesting characters and there's that narrative of the bust-up as well and also what's happened internally, like the cultural stuff in there as well that's swirling around Atlassian. It used to be the best place to work and now there's just so many dramas internally as well. It's a story of people that have been really, really successful And have become very, very wealthy because of that. 28:20 But there's also – then there's the pitfalls of what happens when you make a lot of money and you fall out and you have marriage issues. And you become a company and people that you weren't when you started. So it's a rollicking tale of, yeah, what happens. It's a lifestyles of the rich and the famous – And it's a story of success, but it's a story of, you know, what happens to you when you become successful. And it's not always fun and games, I think, is probably the takeout. 28:45 So be careful what you wish for type of thing. Yes. Because, you know, a lot of people would be, oh, wow, wouldn't it be great to be these guys and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, it's still probably plenty of people still say it would be great to be these guys, notwithstanding all the sort of trials and tribulations I've been through more recently. But what do you see, as Australians yourselves and as Australian authors, And, you know, and you're involved in writing for The Australian in terms of a business sort of total broader sense business in Australia. 29:17 What are the lessons we learned from this? 29:19 There's a few key ones. I mean, I'd probably just start with, you know, some of the amazing things they've delivered. You know, the startup tech culture, which didn't really exist before Atlassian came along. You know, these guys have sort of paved the way. 29:40 You know, I think we're talking about Canva just before we started this. But is that not worth the sort of money these guys are worth? 29:48 Oh, no. Canva's worth $45 billion. I think it recently had a different sort of valuation. Yeah, it's pretty close to worth it. 29:54 No, but he got $100 billion. Oh, they got up to, yeah, $100 billion. It's come off. It's come off. 29:59 That's right, it has. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, partly with AI, which we might get to. But so, look, they've... created this um quite fantastic sort of startup culture um in australia and they've been enormously influential in there so i i think that's a real um credit to the it's a great australian story it's a great australian story yeah um uh but probably um the human story might be slightly different though is that right because human stories evolve yeah yeah look uh you know i think think back to when you're in your early 20s and fast forward 25 years to your late 40s. 30:38 You're quite different people. They started off this company and they wanted to do things differently. 30:47 Infamously, they didn't want to go and work at a big four accounting firm. They wanted to create their own culture. And they did. And hundreds even thousands of atlassian people were really passionate about working there but as it got bigger that started to fray and i think they started to go into different um into different directions and there's no doubt that the the money that it was spinning off you know played into that um you know scott has talked about. I mean, these guys do a lot of podcasts. 31:17 They're 10 guys. And by the way, this is unauthorized. 31:20 This is not an authorized book. They didn't sort of give you interviews and say, go for it, boys. Everything is great. No, definitely not. They're not happy about it. They're not happy, no. 31:30 I was just going to say, look, Scott's talked about with his own kids, people come into their lives and they've had to sort of think about, are they coming in for the right reasons? Are they our friends or are they attracted by something else? Money and power. And I think one of the things we probably love about Australia is people can walk down the street and- Yeah, yeah, exactly. But certainly there has been a bit of a pitfall there as well. 32:04 It's a great Australian story in terms of a startup business taking on the world and doing it successfully. 32:14 But it's also – there's a human story in there of how we change. 32:19 Is that a part of – is that a sort of a theme that comes out of this book, our side of the yarn? 32:24 Definitely, yeah. I mean, the thing with that is that the way that these guys always wanted to be portrayed, it was those two things mixed together, right? That's always dangerous. The business and the human part, right? So you see like – You know, there's billionaires in America that will, you know, quietly go about their business and, you know, not really put their heads up. And they just, you know, they play golf or they, you know, have yachts or they have planes. Or Berkshire Hathaway for a son. Exactly, right. They just do their thing. They still live in the same house. 32:53 And Charlie and him lived in the same house as they were married in like 60 years ago. Correct. And whereas someone like Mike in particular wanted to change the world, right? So you put yourself out there. 33:05 And you say, we talked about before, you want to be, you know, you're being an activist in something outside your business, right? So you become something that you weren't when you started that business publicly. And then you, you know, you probably, you know, you pop your head above the parapet, right? And then you... 33:23 clearly get open to charges of hypocrisy if you're not necessarily doing what you're saying. So this happens along the way as well. Now, so I agree, there's definitely a business part to it and a human part to it, but a key part of their narrative and their story that they always... promoted themselves was how those two mixed together and mixed together successfully. So we came along and found out that that wasn't always the case. Now, there's no doubt that- At a personal level. Correct. On a personal level. On a business level, absolutely still a success. AI is coming along and there's a question mark. 33:56 No, it doesn't. 33:57 The question will be, can they overcome that? Correct. 33:59 And that's another issue. So there's definitely a part to that where the human part is different, but they always talked about it together. 34:05 Because I have seen the share price have bounced. It has, definitely. Bounce up. And I do note that they copped a bit of a punch in the mouth, maybe a beginning issue when they sacked a whole lot of people because they didn't need them anymore, presumably using AI to cover those jobs. 34:22 But by the way, if I'm a shareholder on the NASDAQ of that company, I would be glad that they're doing that because I don't want to... 34:30 you know, have the overheads too high if they don't need to be. So that's the sort of job, that's your responsibility to your shareholders. Absolutely. Which might happen to be your 50% of it, but it doesn't matter. So I sort of get that part. But in terms of the human story of it, and it's unfortunate Mike and his wife are sort of part of the company now, but... 34:50 It doesn't matter at the end of the day how much money you've got. You're still subject to all the vagaries of normal life. 34:57 Definitely. 34:58 And that's what's coming out in the book. 35:00 Well, the rich list is not necessarily the happy list. No, no. 35:03 That's what I think that the rich list, you know, grace, respect to you and your colleagues. That's okay. It's a tough one to be – and, you know, I know other people who you've put on the rich list – this year, last year, who sort of run a bit of trouble. 35:21 Absolutely. 35:21 Absolutely, yeah. It's not, you know, yeah, making money is not necessarily the key to happiness. You've got to find a balance there. 35:28 Yeah, and that's a good point. I'm glad you raised that, because like, Does money equate to happiness? 35:34 Does fame equate to happiness? Does heavy-duty activism or something you really believe in, does that equate to happiness? 35:46 If they had their time again, would they do the same thing? It's a good question. I'm not sure they would. Together? Yes, but I'm thinking the activist part. I'm not so sure. 35:54 Yeah, that's interesting. But no doubt, in Mike's case, he's passionate about it. 36:00 He's extraordinarily passionate about saving the planet or doing our part in saving the planet, Australia's part. 36:08 And that enthusiasm, you wonder, the question becomes, should I have been so public perhaps? 36:17 Like, you know, I've done lots of things in my life and plenty of times I've sort of regretted it. 36:23 And, you know, fortunately I've been able to sort of, move on and that stuff gets stamped in the past and the stuff I'm doing at the moment probably becomes more important. I'm terrified of you two guys walking in and saying, why don't we go check Boris? But I don't have enough money to do that. You've upped the game. You're not in the hundreds of millions anymore. You're in the billions. If you're not in the billions, it's not worth writing that. You're in the tens of billions. Yeah, and more. 36:51 So the tech bros, and you've got them with one face, I presume that's half face each. Yes, yes. 36:58 Now, our great friend, Nick Walker, who's a photographer, that's his creation, that face, which he did for a magazine profile quite a while ago. But he was struck by how similar their faces are. 37:11 Yes, the shape of their faces. That's why he put that together. We thought it'd make a great book cover. Tech bros, yeah. I mean, look, you know, it is a – I mean, they were meant to be bros, right? They're in tech. They were meant to be together. That was – it's a play on that wording for sure. But I think it also tells that story of what they were at one stage too. 37:29 Bros, not in so much, but actually probably were my brothers. 37:34 The best men at each other's weddings. 37:36 Were they? Yeah, yeah. So, you know – started the business 2002, was it, John? 37:43 10 years later or thereabouts, best men at each other's wedding. And then I think as we document in the book, I think it was 2019, they have this year of not talking as it was described to us. Oh, really? 37:55 Where, you know, this is- For a whole year or for a period of time. Pretty much, yeah. This is after the Elaine and Fairwater or sorry, around that time. 38:05 Where are they now? Because I hear, but I've heard- Mm-hmm. 38:09 I've seen stuff where they're both putting it out together. It looks like they're... Do you think they're made up? 38:15 I think they're, I think, well, I mean, they have to have board meetings together. They have to do things like that together. Scott's still on the board. He's still a major shareholder. They're not putting things out publicly or not being seen in public together for quite a while. Oh, still. So still, look, I think it's sort of like, you know, they'll catch up and talk business and stuff like that. Occasionally, Mike pops his head up and say, yeah, look, you know, we have a beer and we have- But the people that we know, that know them really, really well, say that that's not quite the case. Now, they're probably civil. 38:47 They have to be. You know, time heals a lot of wounds, but there's certainly times when they were like, you know, right together. And I think that pressure, you know, created an issue. 38:56 What are some of the things you discovered in your research? What other things did you discover in your research that might be covered off in various chapters? Yeah. 39:03 Well, I've got, there's an interesting one for you from a rugby league point of view. We found a couple of old blogs from Mike that we talked about how much he loved the roosters. Yeah, originally. 39:14 Yes, originally. Oh, wow. 39:15 Well, they're point five reason roosters. 39:17 Well, I know. Now he owns a chunk of the Rabbitohs. That's a bit controversial between those two. 39:22 But are you saying that, John, are you saying that at some stage or other, he liked the Roosters? 39:28 He was blogging about the Mighty Roosters because back in the day, like 20-odd, 20, 23, 24 years ago, he had his own blog. That's what people did, right? He put all his whole life, he talked about, you know, his basketball final was on. He talked about girls. He talked about this, that, and the other. And then he talked about the Mighty Roosters and how they're going to beat the, you know, the Mighty Roosters are going to beat the New Zealand. Remember they played the Warriors. It was about... It was 2002 we won the grand final. 39:50 That's right, yeah. Villasanti, Villa the Gorilla, opened up Barry Fittler's head. Oh, yeah, that's right. And Adrian Morley went and squared up very quickly, and we won the grand final. 40:02 Yeah, well, there you go. Well, you were cheering for them that day, and we suspect Mike was cheering for them as well. Wow. Then you come around to now, and now he's a part owner of the rivals down the road. Well, the Book of Feuds. Exactly right, yeah. So that part's probably not going to ever be in the Book of Feuds, I suspect. Yeah. 40:16 but that's in here that's in there oh that's worth reading from that point of view maybe i should send out reach out to him and say mate like anytime you want to come over and have a beer with me where where did they grow up oh yeah look that's a really interesting um part of the story as well the complete chalk and cheese um yeah so um scott uh you know grew up in sydney's western suburbs um Castle Hill. Castle Hill. His mum worked a couple of jobs. What was it, Target? 40:48 Yeah, Maccas as well. Yeah, just normal working class people. I think Scott describes they went to the same spot every year for their annual family holiday. Again, pretty typical for how a lot of Australians grew up. Probably went up to the Central Coast or something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, Mike, from, you know, incredibly different, his father, so Michael Cannonbrook's senior, was a successful banker. And he sort of made his name in Australia. 41:22 He sort of got one of the original banking licences from Paul Keating for Citibank. So he was in charge of Citibank when they came to Australia. And They led quite a globe-trotting lifestyle. 41:37 Mike was actually over in boarding school in England, and there's quite a nice little twist in the book in that he used sort of an early frequent flyer miles flying from England to Australia and back to actually get his first PC computer. 42:00 So that's sort of when he was still a kid, essentially. Were they child prodigies? 42:07 Oh, they, they, they were, they were smart for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Um, look, Mike was, um, you know, I don't, I don't think he sort of topped every class or anything like that, but, but certainly, um, when it came to coding and some of that tech stuff, um, he was very good at it. And, and Scott, um, out at, uh, James Roos, um, he, he was, um, yeah, he, he was a real scholar. Um, and, And, you know, scouts as well, I think, was part of his, you know, big passion. 42:43 Sounds like a full-on old-time school, old-school Aussie. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. James Rusai, live out in Castle Hill, went and was in the scouts. 42:52 Yeah. His mum worked a couple of jobs, made ends meet. Scott has talked about when he first went to the eastern suburbs, he probably could never have imagined he'd buy a mansion in Point Piper. He felt quite out of place. If he'd go to someone's house or a party or something like that, that wasn't world that scott grew up in and you know he he he can be quite awkward um still uh you know socially um you know mike's uh sort of you know very out there and and um confident yeah very very confident um you know especially in the eastern suburbs um scott's uh you know a little bit different to that what else is in there that i we would not know about these two 43:39 Well, there's – I mean, the private jet stuff comes up a bit. Yeah. Mike being the climate warrior. Do they both have one? No, Mike does. So he bought a $75 million one, merged at the start of last year that he had one, even after all his talk about – carbon offsetting this, that, and the other, and how we shouldn't be doing this. It turns out he bought a Bombardier as well. He still has one? He still has it. We charted, you know, they'd gone around the world and gone to all these Grands Prixs because Atlassian now sponsors the Williams Grand Prix team. 44:10 Right. Grand Prix. He's done this. Yeah, absolutely. So they... 44:15 Spend $50 million a year on sponsorship. Absolutely. So there's the Grand Prix stuff as well. Atlassian sponsors it. Atlassian sponsors it, yep. Wow. So, yeah, they're a title sponsor for the Williams team now. So the private jet sort of thing comes out as well. So he's circumventing the world in his private jet while, you know, talking about, you know, Dirty coal, this, that, and the other as well, carbon and so on. So there's things like that that have emerged. There's the house stuff, which we chart as well. Look, there's a lot of these narratives that built up about them that you sort of just end up poking a few holes in, I suppose. 44:50 Overall, the narrative is absolutely true. I mean, one of the things, right, Atlassian, just before it floats, sorry, but before it takes on its first outside funding process, from a company called ASOL. It takes on about $60 million. They didn't need the money, but they decided to raise it because they want to eventually list, right? But the Atlassian gets hacked. It's an amazing story that Scott tells about the company gets hacked. I was on my honeymoon in Botswana and Mike had to call me and someone drives through the desert and they find me and they take me on this light plane and then I eventually get back to Sydney and we're working all through the night to try and close the the hacker, right? 45:29 So it's a big moment in Atlassian's formative years. 45:32 But no one ever knew this before, and we found out that actually it was Scott's password that gets hacked. He had a really easy-to-guess password, like the word password or something like that. But these are the things. They have these great stories, but then they sort of leave out these little details that makes them look bad. So things like that. Well, you've got to manage your brand, though, I guess. 45:51 You too. That makes sense. You too. I don't think there'd be too many successful people, though, who haven't stuffed it up. Oh, absolutely. And it turns out it wasn't an issue either. Chapter 12, though. Come on. This is... 46:02 This looks like Joe. I remember Joe called, one of them is, Double Bay Jesus and the Pursuit of Greener Future. What's that mean, Double Bay Jesus? 46:10 Yeah, so that's Mike Cannon-Brooks. Why Double Bay Jesus? 46:16 Well, he had the long hair looking like Jesus and, you know, walking around in sandals in Double Bay, which is where, you know, that's from Joe's, you know, original moniker that he termed him that because, and then he's walking around Double Bay and, you know, he's the evangelist about climate change and so on. So, yeah, Double Bay. Evangelistic. Yeah, yeah. Now I get it. Yeah, yeah. Plus the look and the sandals and so on as well. 46:38 I think even, yeah, he's spotted just in bare feet a few times as well, even. 46:43 So what's chapter 11 with Grok and Skip? 46:46 What's that about? Oh, yeah. So both Mike and Scott set up these family offices. Yeah, so Mike's got Grok. Skip is Scott and his wife, Kim. 47:01 Kim's, you know, actually sort of been the brains behind a lot of it. Yeah. And that's quite an important part of the story. We probably focus a little bit more on Grok and the family office there because it actually becomes quite a corrosive place to work. So Mike's own family office, which is used to invest his business. billions of dollars actually becomes sort of connected to some of the bullying that's going on at Atlassian. 47:36 And look, it probably goes a bit to what we've touched on. 47:41 You had this vision of quite a utopian tech culture, which I think a lot of tech companies really promote and have this narrative around. And actually, I you know over the years that that sort of dissolved a little bit and uh you know what what you found is just some sort of base you know human you know greed and and bullying um you know sort of uh you know made that a bit destructive in the end um so you know one of the first things um that happened after Scott left, after Scott stepped down as co-CEO, as some of the so-called assassins, who this sort of tight group of women that worked near Mike said, oh, you know, yay, we can all fly business class. 48:35 They were only on economy before that. Once Scott was out the door, business class, and then, you know, obviously Mike got the jet and the Formula One sponsorship. 48:46 And we've had multiple people tell us none of that would have happened under Scott's watch. In fact, I don't think the private jet would have happened either, even though that's Mike's own money. 48:57 I think, you know, all of a sudden it was unleashed that they could sort of do what they like with the money. Well, I'm glad you guys came because it's actually – 49:10 "'It's an interesting yawn.' But I really think there's a deeper underlying theme that's coming out of this, is that we're all subject to human temptations. We're all subject to human frailties and errors and et cetera. And even to the best of us, the best of friends, things can come between us based on principles and external influences that we may or may not have. 49:41 From what you're telling me, it's real. 49:45 you're not making judgments on anybody. 49:47 You're just saying these things happen. And as an Aussie saying, we'd say shit happens. And it does. 49:55 But this is just turbocharged. 50:00 Yeah, because of the money and the personalities involved. The size of everything's bigger. Correct, yeah. The houses are bigger, the money that it takes bigger, the personalities are bigger. 50:07 But it happens at lots of different levels. It could happen at a $150,000 house if you bought it next door to your best mate or your brother or your sister for that matter. 50:15 And none of us are perfect, I guess, at the end of the day. And this sort of is a great example of it. 50:21 What appears to be perfect largely is imperfect. 50:26 I think the most important part is It is a great company, and there's two guys who created something amazing. 50:35 But to some extent, I feel sorry for them that it hasn't turned out that way over the 20-year period or the 10-year period, whatever it is, the period, that they've been confronted with these challenges, some of which has sort of changed the relationship or the nature of the relationship that they have. 50:53 So well done. It's tech bros. What started off for me was going to be a yarn has actually made me think about stuff and basically no one's immune. 51:07 Well done. 51:09 Thanks, Mark. Yeah, thanks very much. You're welcome.