Scott Farquhar Building Atlassian and Revolutionizing Software Development

SCOTT FARQUHAR: Building Atlassian and Revolutionizing Software Development

Scott Farquhar and his university buddy Mike Cannon-Brookes had a simple plan: avoid getting real jobs by starting their own company. Armed with nothing but a $10,000 credit card debt and a shared belief that software should work better, they accidentally built one of the world's most influential tech companies.
Fresh out of university in 2002, during the dot-com wreckage, these two Australians did something radical. Instead of flying to Silicon Valley with their hands out, they stayed in Sydney and proved you could build world-class software from anywhere. They skipped the expensive sales teams, fancy offices, and venture capital circus that everyone said was essential for success.
Their first product, Jira, started as a simple issue-tracking tool. Today, it powers software development at companies like Spotify, NASA, and Netflix. What began as two friends solving their own problems has grown into a collaboration empire serving over 200,000 customers worldwide, from scrappy startups to Fortune 500 giants.
This is the story of how two regular guys from Australia rewrote the rules of enterprise software, launched the Product Led Growth movement, and proved that sometimes the best way to change an industry is to ignore what everyone says you're supposed to do.
When everyone else was trying to be the next Silicon Valley, they decided to be the first.