The millionaire founders of the Australian-based software firm Atlassian commemorated the company’s 20th anniversary with sculptures of their faces in the manner of Roman emperors.
At the company’s 20th birthday party in Sydney in June, life-size sculptures of co-CEOs Mike-Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar loomed big, the same month Mr. Cannon-Brookes launched his goal to ‘decarbonize’ Australia.
A photograph released by the Rear Window section of the Australian Financial Review on Wednesday depicts a statue of a shirtless, baseball cap-wearing Cannon-Brookes towering over a birthday cake.
Mr. Farquhar, co-founder of the company, is attired in a toga and a colorful party hat for the momentous event.
Mr. Cannon-Brookes and Mr. Farquhar co-founded Atlassian in 2002 and are thought to reside in adjacent homes in Point Piper, one of Sydney’s most affluent districts.
Mr. Cannon-Brookes is ranked fourth on The Australian’s Richest 250 with an estimated net worth of $26.2 billion after cofounding the international firm that produces project management software such as Trello and Jira.
Mr. Farquhar is ranked fifth on the list of the wealthy, with an estimated net worth of around $25.99 billion.
In conjunction with the company’s 20th anniversary in June, Mr. Cannon-Brookes advocated for the rapid shutdown of all coal-fired power facilities in Australia and said that the nation was solely to blame for the present energy crisis.
“At some point, we must acknowledge that we created this situation,” he said at a business event around the same time. We’ve been in this situation for almost a decade due to our inactivity on climate change. Earlier this year, Cannon-Brookes prevented the proposed demerger of Australia’s largest energy firm and largest polluter, AGL. He stated that a proposal to divide the firm in two would be detrimental to shareholders, consumers, and employees, and might delay the shutdown of Australia’s coal-fired power plants.
Cannon-Brookes’ involvement ultimately resulted in the AGL leadership team resigning.
The future of the corporation, according to Cannon-Brookes, will be the “biggest decarbonisation project in the world.”
Mr. Cannon-Brookes said, “It’s a terrible disgrace, and we’re going to remedy it.”
“We must rebuild the board with a far more ambitious, forward-thinking, progressive board for the sake of shareholders, the environment, and the workforce,” he said.
The billionaire was unsure at the moment whether he would become a director of AGL.
Mr. Cannon-Brookes recently predicted a bleak future for growing energy prices, as electrical providers warned clients of impending price hikes due to the conflict in Ukraine.
‘Unfortunately, I believe that your electricity rates will increase dramatically this year,’ he told Seven News, pinning the blame on Australia’s heavy reliance on coal and gas.
He said, “The price of coal and gas has increased, and between 65 and 70 percent of our grid is powered by coal and gas.”