It was the tech company that partied hard - 'one of the best places in Sydney to work'. A big, friendly corporate giant where the 'beer bicycle' wheeled by your desk on Friday afternoons. 

It was the office where your bosses played games with you even as they raked in  billions and everyone, it seemed, had fun - that was until it turned toxic and the 'open culture, no bulls**' became just that: bulls***.

Atlassian became so toxic that employees would quit simply to preserve their mental health. It was an environment where female top brass were reportedly choosing sides in the co-founders' falling-out, and, according to a new book, one staffer allegedly suggested a colleague make the boss's wife jealous by wearing a 'f***able' dress.

That was in about 2021, according to a new book, Tech Bros, about Atlassian's rise and its friends-turned-rivals co-founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar.  

In the years that followed, Atlassian's mega-successful run as the jewel in Australia's tech industry - one that earned its creators untold wealth, mansions, yachts and luxury cars - all but imploded with the disruptive advent of artificial intelligence.

But back in the day, or at least by the mid-2000s, Atlassian, which struck gold with its essential project-management software for IT developers, was as free-spirited a firm as could be found anywhere in the world.

While the company was on the rise, its envied staff were playing games like the spy-themed 'Mission: Atlassian' adventure race around the city to promote team-building and bonding.

Three times a year, Atlassian held big parties: Melbourne Cup Day at Doyles on Watsons Bay, the Christmas bash on a yacht in Sydney Harbour, and the pub gathering known for its risqué drag performances. 

Then there was the go-kart racing, the paintballing, the whitewater rafting - all part of a culture to reward creativity and fire anyone who was an 'a***hole'.

At Atlassian's headquarters on George Street, in Sydney's Central Business District, four beer taps were installed, and from 1pm on a Friday, a chef prepared meals as staff played poker, lunchtime sports or board games to ease into the weekend.

Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar 'thrashed out' the core values for Atlassian, journalists John Stensholt and Perry Williams write in Tech Bros, which included keeping 'your customers happy'.

They encouraged employees to speak out 'to improve the products, culture and workplace' and offered $10,000 incentives for finding new staff who stuck.

The company's best-known software products included Jira for tracking tasks and workflows, Confluence for team collaboration and documentation, HipChat for messaging and calls, and Bitbucket for code hosting and reviews.

It was flooded with job applications and rewarded its recruits and interns with travel and tours, as well as a summer at a Sydney beach house to brainstorm new products.

Tech Bros devotes a chapter to Cannon-Brookes meeting and marrying American fashion designer Annie Todd, and Farquhar's relationship with wife Kim Jackson, a rock band member turned investment banker.

Annie Cannon-Brookes would go on to launch a fashion label in Australia, and Jackson would co-found with her husband Skip Capital, a private investment capital company. 

By 2010, the Atlassian founders were worth $314million, ten times what they had been worth three years earlier, and the company was heading towards a public listing.

In 2015, Cannon-Brookes, Farquhar, their families and a dozen select staff flew to New York to celebrate their first day of trading as a public company when they got to ring the Nasdaq opening bell.

The jeans-and-T-shirt-wearing bosses, now freshly minted billionaires, kept it casual for the obligatory photos in Times Square, followed by a meal at a pizza joint. 

Back at Atlassian's Sydney HQ, the book writes, it was still a fun place to work.

The two men were earning masses of money, selling 7,500 shares each daily, which made them in the 2017 financial year roughly $7.3million apiece.

Mike Cannon-Brookes had invested in yachts, was driving a $120,000 Tesla EV, and would end up buying a portfolio of 35 properties, worth about $450million in total.

These included a $12million house in Centennial Park; three houses in Double Bay, in Sydney's eastern suburbs, worth a total of more than $30million; an $18million mansion in nearby Woollahra; as well as various properties on the Northern Beaches, including a $24.5million house in Newport.

Farquhar bought the historic house 'Elaine' in prestigious Point Piper, the most expensive suburb in Australia, with a proposed $37million revamp.

By 2020, Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes' professional partnership was reportedly in trouble and that, within Atlassian, a group of executive women were seemingly on the side of Cannon-Brookes.

Dubbed internally 'the velvet vixens', they included his executive assistant, Faye Stirling, who exerted great power and influence within the company, as well as Amy Glancey, the chief of staff to the co-CEOs.

Cannon-Brookes told Nine newspapers in 2021 that Glancey was 'critical' to Atlassian, saying: 'Amy tells me how it is. No bulls**t. She's a close and trusted adviser.'

The book's authors, who both work at The Australian, were told by a former Atlassian employee that Glancey was 'the guard at the doors of the castle... who has all the secrets'.

The book claims that Glancey regarded Cannon-Brookes as the star player.

By 2021, Annie Cannon-Brookes was reportedly no longer in the inner circle, having gone through 'a trial separation' with her husband.

Tech Bros alleges that the relationship between Annie and both Stirling and Glancey had cooled.

Around the same time, 'Stirling and a colleague exchanged messages debating what dress they should wear in front of Annie,' Stensholt and Williams allege in Tech Bros.

'One suggestion was to wear something "really f***able. Annie is going to be really jealous".'

The Slack in question was among tens of thousands contained within an investigation by law firm Kingston Reid. The colleague Stirling was messaging wasn't named.

Mike and Annie Cannon-Brookes, who have four children, separated in July 2023.

And in April 2024, Farquhar dropped a 'bombshell' on Atlassian, announcing he was stepping down as co-CEO.

He remained on the company board as a special adviser, but Cannon-Brookes became the sole CEO and, since then, company profits have shrunk with the rise of AI in the tech world.

In February this year, on its Instagram page, Atlassian posted a promotional video interpreted as a rallying cry: 'Team Atlassian '26 – it's time to rewrite the rules of teamwork. Transform the way you work together.' 

But Tech Bros says the team spirit was no longer there, at least for engineering staff, quoting a message on Atlassian's Slack channel from December last year which said the culture was 'a gladiator sport'.

'It's every man and woman for themselves. This is not conducive to great work. It's fertiliser for toxic politics,' read the message.

The post detailed the 'distrust' of staff, with laptops and cell phones 'monitored more and more every day' and a biannual performance review system 'focusing on endless performance art... at some point the peasants will storm the castle'.

One anecdote in Tech Bros suggested that executive staff like Glancey had a privileged position which allowed her, during an Atlassian event in Las Vegas, to organise a $2,000-a-head dinner for her team.

By comparison, other staff on the same trip were on an $80 daily allowance, although one source told Tech Bros they doubted the executives' dinner was so expensive.

Another former staffer posted in 2025 that the culture of solving issues had changed in Atlassian to one of 'let's find out whose fault it is' and that 'consistent high pressure and long hours ruined your mental and physical health'.

'I witnessed a top-performing team become demotivated, dismantled and lose nearly all its veterans in just a few months. I know it's time to leave.' 

In March this year, Atlassian announced that it would lay off about 10 per cent of its staff and reshape its business to focus on AI and enterprise sales.

A former executive, who is no longer with the firm, described the atmosphere inside Atlassian as 'the most toxic workplace I've ever been in'. 

Tech Bros by John Stensholt and Perry Williams, Harper Collins $36.99