# 173 Mike Cannon-Brookes $9.78B

The majority of Cannon-Brookes' fortune is derived from a 28% stake in Atlassian, a developer of enterprise software. The Sydney-based company is publicly traded in New York and has more than 150,000 customers, according to its website.

He holds the shares directly and via closely held holding company Grokco, according to the company's annual report for the year to June 30, 2019. Cannon-Brookes' stake is held in Class B shares and represents 49% of the non-traded stock. His co-founder, Scott Farquhar, controls another 49% of the Class B shares.

The value of his cash holdings is based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, taxes and market performance.

Scott Rubin, a spokesman for Atlassian, declined to comment on Cannon-Brookes's net worth.

Mike Cannon-Brookes was born in 1979 in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Michael Cannon-Brookes, was a finance executive who worked for U.S.-based firms. 

Mike attended Cranbrook School in Sydney, whose former pupils include fellow billionaire James Packer. He began studying for a Bachelor of Commerce in information systems degree at the University of New South Wales in 1998. 

Cannon-Brookes met classmate Scott Farquhar during his university studies and the pair founded Atlassian in 2002. The enterprise software company offers services to software developers and project managers.

Atlassian grew quickly and by 2010 had sold a minority stake to venture capital firm Accel Partners for $60 million. It sold $462 million in new shares in a 2015 initial public offering in New York. The IPO valued Atlassian at more than $4 billion.

Cannon-Brookes lives in Sydney with his wife.