In a letter to Atlassian employees, Farquhar said the company was in the best position it had ever been in.

“It’s been 23 years since Mike and I started Atlassian, fresh out of university. We got to work on the heels of the dot-com bust and unbeknownst to us, we were kick-starting the Australian tech industry,” he said.

“Today, rockets don’t launch into orbit without Atlassian’s software.”

Farquhar is the father of three sons. Apart from Atlassian, he is involved in the venture capital sector through Skip Capital, which is headed by his wife Kim Jackson. Skip was an early investor in local tech heavyweight Canva and fintech Airwallex. The couple also founded the Skip Foundation, which funds health, environmental and equal opportunity initiatives, and encourages companies towards philanthropy.

Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes each have an estimated fortune of more than $15 billion, and have each held on to about 20 per cent of the company they started more than 20 years ago.

During an earnings call, the co-founders said they had always shared and rotated responsibilities equally, so Cannon-Brookes was not being left in charge of anything he couldn’t handle.

“We’ve taken turns taking the bins out in our first office, so we’ve done every job equally over that period of time,” Farquhar said.

“We have shared and divvied up those responsibilities between us. I don’t think there is anything Mike hasn’t done before that he’ll be picking up.”

Atlassian shares slipped 8 per cent in extended trading after closing at $US198.41 in New York. The company is down 17 per cent this year.

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“While the executive transition is a surprise, it should not impact the operations as the company is in strong footing,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Sunil Rajgopal.

As part of its results, Atlassian announced $US1.2 billion ($1.84 billion) in revenue for the quarter, up 30 per cent year-over-year, driven by subscription revenue growth of 41 per cent year-over-year. It drove record free cash flow of $US555 million, up 59 per cent year-over-year.

Profit was 89¢ per share, beating the 62¢ projected by analysts. Still, the company added customers more slowly than anticipated.

with Bloomberg

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