\u201cThey do a very good job,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they\u2019re built for everyone, and that limits what they can do for specialists. In any field, competition is healthy. Our goal isn\u2019t 6 billion users, it\u2019s the billion knowledge workers who need a better tool.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe think there\u2019s a far better way for them to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Atlassian briefly considered building its own AI-powered browser, but opted for an acquisition, particularly given that it had already been an investor in The Browser Company and Cannon-Brookes knew the founders well.<\/p>\n
The deal also lands just weeks after Atlassian announced fresh redundancies, the latest in a series of cuts in which thousands of jobs have disappeared across the global tech sector.<\/p>\n
High-level executives including Atlassian president Anu Bharadwaj and work futurist Dominic Price have also recently left the company, after co-founder Scott Farquhar resigned in April last year. Asked about morale, Cannon-Brookes pushed back at media coverage that described a company in turmoil.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, don\u2019t believe everything you read,\u201d he said. \u201cIn terms of morale internally, it\u2019s pretty good. We do regular surveys on a quarterly basis, we track those results, we try to improve them, and we try to be honest and clear with our employees at all times about what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSo I don\u2019t believe we have any problems. But we\u2019re not naive, we\u2019re not unaware. We work very hard to have the culture that we have, and I think we should be very proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recent headlines also focused on the 150 job cuts that Cannon-Brookes delivered via a recorded video. Critics pounced on the perceived impersonal nature of the announcement, but Cannon-Brookes said instead he regretted \u201cthe way the media spins this stuff into a cycle of bullshit\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPre-recorded video messages is the way we distribute stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s called Loom. We have a product to do that, it\u2019s fantastic, and it\u2019s growing like wildfire.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecondly, it implies that we didn\u2019t have one-on-one conversations with every single person who\u2019s affected. I don\u2019t think anyone\u2019s expecting me to have conversations with all those employees one-on-one, but their manager did. Their manager\u2019s manager did. All of that is ignored completely. Would they prefer that I was absent from that? I bet the answer is absolutely no.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the video message \u2013 delivered to employees who were across geographies and time zones \u2013 was not in conflict with Atlassian\u2019s stated values of \u201copen company, no bullshit\u201d and \u201cbuild with heart and balance\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we will continue to use quote, unquote, pre-recorded video messages because they communicate humanity, they communicate people\u2019s feelings, they enable you to connect,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would argue that an email, which is the standard way of doing things, is a far worse way of doing this than a video message that has a person who is there talking, and you can reply with comments and questions and reactions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is our standard way of doing things and it does not mean that that is the only communication that any of those people had. It does not mean we don\u2019t have internal mobility and outplacement services and all the other things that we always do, which is never reported.\u201d<\/p>\n