Scott Farquhar (born December 1979) is an Australian

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busi ...

, the co-founder and co-CEO of the software company

Atlassian Atlassian Corporation () is an Australian software company that develops products for software developers, project managers and other software development teams. The company is domiciled in Delaware, with global headquarters in Sydney, Austra ...

. Farquhar often carries the

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

of ''accidental billionaire'' after he and his business partner Mike Cannon-Brookes founded Atlassian with the aim to replicate the 48,000 graduate starting salary typical at corporations without having to work for someone else.

Early life

Farquhar was born in December 1979. He attended

James Ruse Agricultural High School , motto_translation = Deeds not words , established = , type = Government-funded co-educational academically selective and specialist secondary day school , educational_authority = NSW Departm ...

and Castle Hill Primary School and graduated from the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensiv ...

, with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

and

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

Career

With Cannon-Brookes, Farquhar is the co-founder and co-CEO of Atlassian, a collaboration software company with more than 51,000 large and small organisations as customers – including some of the biggest names in media, manufacturing and technology – use Atlassian’s tracking, collaboration, communication, service management and development products. Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar were recognised for their achievements as the Australian Consensus IT Professional of the Year award in 2004, and Australian 2006 Entrepreneur of the Year. Farquhar has mentored through the Australian Businesswomen’s Network and gives guest lectures on entrepreneurship to MBA students and undergraduates. In 2018, Farquhar spoke out against the Australian Government’s renaming of the 457 visas, saying the move damages Australia's reputation as a place that people want to come to work. Farquar is a significant investor in tech startups through a privately held investment fund, Skip Capital. As of 2021, the fund had a stake in four Australian tech unicorns, including

Canva Canva is an Australian graphic design platform that is used to create social media graphics and presentations. The app includes readymade templates for users to use, and the platform is free and offers paid subscriptions such as Canva Pro and ...

and Airwallex; along with overseas firms, such as Talkdesk, a provider of cloud-based contact centre software based in San Francisco.

Personal life

He is married to Kim Jackson and they have three sons. In 2017 Farquhar purchased from the

Fairfax family Members of the Fairfax Family were prominent as Australian media proprietors, especially in the area of newspaper publishing through the company John Fairfax and Sons (later known as Fairfax Media, although the Fairfax family no longe ...

its former ancestral Sydney harbourside home, ''Elaine'', for approximately 75 million. The home set on had been in the ownership of the Fairfax family since 1891 and was vacant for nearly twenty years prior to its purchase by Farquhar. In 2020 it was reported that Farquhar plans a partial knock-down of unsympathetic renovations to ''Elaine'', and rebuild a 30 million contemporary home. In 2018 Cannon-Brookes bought the house next door, '' Fairwater'', Australia's most expensive house at approximately 100 million. In April 2022 Scott saved a man's life in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

Net worth

Alongside his business partner, Cannon-Brookes, Farquhar debuted on the 2007 ''BRW'' Young Rich list of the richest Australians aged 40 and under, and on the ''

BRW Rich 200 The ''Financial Review Rich List'', formerly known as the ''BRW Rich 200'', is a list of Australia's two hundred wealthiest individuals and families, ranked by personal net worth published annually in ''The Australian Financial Review Magazine ...

'' in 2013 with an estimated

net worth Net worth is the value of all the non-financial and financial assets owned by an individual or institution minus the value of all its outstanding liabilities. Since financial assets minus outstanding liabilities equal net financial assets, net ...

of 250 million. In 2016, his net worth was estimated by ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' on the list of Australia's 50 Richest people as 1.75

billion Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: *1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is its only current meaning in English. * 1,000,000,000,000, i. ...

; by ''BRW Rich 200'' as 2.00 billion; and by the ''

Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...

'' Rich List as 906 million. , Farquhar was ranked fifth in the ''Forbes'' list of Australia's 50 Richest people with a net worth of 6.40 billion. He was ranked fifth on the ''

Financial Review ''The Australian Financial Review'' (abbreviated to the ''AFR'') is an Australian business-focused, compact daily newspaper covering the current business and economic affairs of Australia and the world. The newspaper is based in Sydney, New Sou ...

'' 2021 Rich List with a net worth of 20 billion.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Farquhar, Scott 1979 births Living people Australian billionaires Australian businesspeople People educated at James Ruse Agricultural High School University of New South Wales alumni Atlassian people