Australian tech gurus drop a fortune as the value of Atlassian crashes 

Horror night for Australian tech gurus as they lose $1.6BILLION in hours when shares in their firm Atlassian plunge eight per cent

  • Founders of technology company lost $1.6 billion overnight as shares dropped
  • Australian enterprise software company Atlassian’s shares plunged overnight 
  • Founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar collectively lost $1.6billion 
  • The Australian tech firm was launched in 2002 on a $10,000 credit card debt
  • Co-founders gatecrashed events and used free beer to spread word 10 years ago

Founders of a technology company lost $1.6billion overnight as stocks took a hit due to an underwhelming outlook for the year.

US-listed shares in Australian software company Atlassian plunged overnight, falling eight per cent from $US111.19 to $US100.92.

Founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, who own 30 per cent of the company each, collectively lost $1.6billion during the night.

Founders Mike Cannon-Brookes (left) and Scott Farquhar (right), who own 30 per cent of the company each, collectively lost $1.6billion during the night

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the pair both had stakes worth $10billion before the overnight plunge. 

In the outlook for the year ahead, the company said it expected earnings to sit at $US0.82 per share, falling short of expectations for earnings by $US0.10.

The market reacted badly to the figures and within just one night shares fell a staggering 10.27 US cents.

However, analysts say this isn’t going to affect the future of the company at all. 

For the 2019 March quarter the company generated revenue of $US309million which was up 38 per cent from the same period for the previous year.

‘Atlassian is driving flat tack (Australian speak for ‘at maximum speed’) towards the future as we work to unleash the potential of every team,’ Mr Cannon-Brookes and Mr Garquhar said in a letter to stakeholders.

The Australian tech giant is currently valued at $34 billion, but ten years ago Mr Farquhar and Mr Cannon-Brookes were two university mates from Sydney who used free beer to spread the word about their company.

Atlassan co-founder Scott Farquhar, (pictured with wife Kim Jackson) is now a Sydney billionaire

Mike Cannon-Brookes (pictured with wife Annie) said Atlassian will use 100 per cent clean energy by 2025

 Scott Farquhar (left, with wife) and Mike Cannon-Brookes (right, with wife) were two university mates from Sydney who co-founded Atlassian in 2002 on a a $10,000 credit card debt

The Australian tech giant is currently valued at $34 billion, but ten years ago Mr Farquhar and Mr Cannon-Brookes were two university mates from Sydney who used free beer to spread the word about their company

The Australian tech giant is currently valued at $34 billion, but ten years ago Mr Farquhar and Mr Cannon-Brookes were two university mates from Sydney who used free beer to spread the word about their company

Established in 2002, Atlassian still only consisted of several employees seven years later when the pair gatecrashed a podcast recording at a tech conference in Belgium with the aim of making an impact.

They bought $2,000 worth of beer and put Atlassian stickers on them, which were handed to all of the 1,000 attendees as they walked in.

The marketing gamble paid off and the pair haven’t looked back since.

‘We got tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free advertising … the naivety of youth sometimes has its benefits,’ Mr Farquhar told The Australian.

Other guerrilla marketing tactics such as plastering university walls with Atlassian posters and attending community events were deployed by the company in its early days to get the name out.

Marketing tactics such as plastering university walls with Atlassian posters and attending community events were deployed by the company in its early days to get the name out

Marketing tactics such as plastering university walls with Atlassian posters and attending community events were deployed by the company in its early days to get the name out

The company has more than 30,000 staff at 10 offices worldwide, including Sydney, San Francisco, Austin, Amsterdam and Manila.

Company software tools include Jira, Jira Service Desk, Jira Ops, Confluence, Bitbucket, Trello, and many other products.

Atlassian has also been named as one of Australia’s best places to work for several years running.

Mr Cannon-Brookes made headlines last September when he bought Point Piper mansion ‘Fairwater’ in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

The home is the most expensive property ever sold in Australia and had previously been in the hands of the media-mogul Fairfax family for more than a century. 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk