Australia’s favourite tech bromance: Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes buys $100 million house next door to Scott Farquhar

They went to university together, were the best man at each other’s weddings, and founded one of Australia’s most successful tech startups ever together. And the bromance between Atlassian co-founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar is still going strong, with the pair soon to be next-door neighbours as well.

Cannon-Brookes has purchased what Domain has called Australia’s most expensive house, located on Sydney Harbour, in a deal expected to close at about $100 million.

The pair, who this year ranked side-by-side at numbers 11 and 12 on the 2018 AFR Rich List, having each doubled their wealth from $2.51 billion in 2017 to $5.16 billion apiece this year.

Each also now run their own investment ventures, with Cannon-Brookes running Grok Ventures, while Farquhar owns Skip Capital with his wife, and principal of the investment company, Kim Jackson.

Although the pair are now next-door neighbours, Cannon-Brookes will still have plenty of breathing space, with 2.77 acres of estate, compared to Farquhar’s 1.7-acre property.

Cannon-Brookes has also one-upped his buddy in price, taking the most-expensive-home mantle from Farquhar, who Domain reported set the national price record when he bought his property for $70 million in April last year.

The relationship between Atlassian’s co-founders is arguably one of the strongest examples of co-founder friendship in the Australian industry, but their bromance also makes for a good business relationship.

Speaking to Fairfax back in 2014, Farquhar described himself as “the sensible one”, suggesting that Cannon-Brookes has a “reckless streak”.

“Mike is one of the most creative people you’ll meet,” Farquhar said. “He’s very good at imagining stuff that doesn’t exist yet.”

In the same article, Cannon-Brookes praised Farquhar’s leadership skills, saying he is “awesome in a crisis situation”.

“We had a security incident … Scott was on his honeymoon so he bailed on his honeymoon to come back. By the time he came back, I was just about expiring, it was easily the most stressful seven-day period of our lives. It’s instances like that where you see the team rally and the leaders shine,” he said.

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