STRATEGIES Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes, unified in their drive to fend off such dangers, began their lives on disparate trajectories. Cannon-Brookes, the son of an English investment banker, spent much of his youth jetting between Sydney and a ritzy British boarding school. He bought his first computer using airline miles and decided to pursue a career in technology on a whim after being accepted into a prestigious business and computer science scholarship program at the University of New South Wales. Farquhar, meanwhile, was raised in a home with far more modest means. His mother worked at Target and later McDonald’s, his father at a service station, and he acquired his first computer—a barely functional Wang model— after his dad’s business threw it away. He too landed at UNSW as part of the same scholarship cohort, one of a few dozen standout students offered an annual stipend of roughly $9,000. Despite their differences, the pair developed a fast affinity. “He just seemed like a really good bloke,” Cannon-Brookes recounts with signature nonchalance. Nevertheless, they spent most of their college years working on separate projects: Cannon-Brookes on a couple of mildly successful startups, and Farquhar, like many of his classmates, as an unhappy intern at a technology consulting firm. They finally teamed up during their last year as undergraduates after Cannon-Brookes sent an email to a handful of classmates seeking partners for a new startup. The company would provide third-party support for a Swedish software firm. Farquhar, eager to avoid another consulting stint, was the only person to sign on. After graduating, they huddled in their respective bedrooms, working to cultivate clients under the banner Atlassian—named for the Greek titan Atlas, who holds up the heavens. But the third-party-support model proved difficult to scale, so they test-drove a number of other projects: a mail-archiving tool, a knowledge-management product and Jira, designed to help coders track bugs. Jira was the first to gain traction, so they scrapped the other ideas and went all in. There was only one possible business model. “Our software didn’t do very much to start with, so we couldn’t sell it for much money,” Farquhar explains. “If you aren’t going to sell it for much money, you need to sell a lot of it. To sell a lot, it needs to be sold globally. And if you sell globally, it’s got to sell itself online.” So Atlassian put Jira on the Web and largely let customers find it on their own. Among Taavet Hinrikus, 36; Kristo Käärmann, 36 COFOUNDERS, TRANSFERWISE UNITED KINGDOM Money transfers Uses peer-to-peer technology to challenge the world’s largest banks and giants like Western Union in the $3 trillion consumer money-transfer business. Transferwise matches buyers and sellers in over 70 countries. Robert Katz, 50 CEO, VAIL UNITED STATES Ski resorts Transformed Vail into a global ski enterprise with new locations from Vermont to Australia, and casino-style data-driven marketing. His all-access season pass, priced at a low $859, is crushing competitors and reducing cyclicality. Chip-equipped lift passes collect data on its skiers. David Kong, 62 FOUNDER, NIRVANA ASIA MALAYSIA Funerals On a continent starved for space, Kong sells tiny lockers for human remains in ornate columbaria where relatives can pay respects and even enjoy a meal. “Demand for a better service was evident,” says Kong, who despised burying his father-inlaw in a neglected public cemetery. (Others face a lottery or allout ban on land burials.) Nirvana runs cemeteries and columbaria across Asia and peddles services door-to-door. Jeff Lawson, 39 FOUNDER, TWILIO UNITED STATES Mobile apps Has empowered some 40,000 customers, including giants like Airbnb and Salesforce, to enhance their apps with voice, text and video messaging. Its usagebased pricing system has saved businesses millions, obviating the need for hardware or costly prepackaged solutions. Adam Neumann, 38 COFOUNDER, WEWORK UNITED STATES Office space Rents out co-working space, GLOBAL GAME CHANGERS “The future of communications will be written in software by the developers of the world.” JEFF LAWSON, TWILIO “These systems get better year after year. Our brains are only as good as they are.” DAVID SIEGEL, TWO SIGMA GLOBAL GAME CHANGERS with perks like arcade rooms and on-site beer kegs, in 44 cities around the world. “The need for human connection is more important than ever,” says Neumann, who has amassed 100,000 members. Gabe Newell, 54 COFOUNDER, VALVE UNITED STATES Videogames In 2004, his company released Steam, a digital distribution platform that became one of the videogame industry’s most important sales channels. Valve is also leading the way into the cutting-edge world of virtual reality after the release in 2016 of the Vive, a VR headset. John Overdeck, 47 David Siegel, 55 COFOUNDERS, TWO SIGMA UNITED STATES Hedge funds Math geeks who built the fastest-growing big hedge fund on the planet by rounding up hordes of information and using algorithms to detect patterns of irrational pricing. Two Sigma, which now manages $46 billion for investors, harnesses 35 million gigabytes of data from 10,000 different sources. Zhou Qunfei, 47 FOUNDER, LENS TECHNOLOGY CHINA Displays Developer of super-slim glass “Our mission: to create a world where people work to make a life, not just a living.” ADAM NEUMANN, WEWORK screens on iPhones. Started in a factory as a teenager and was tapped by Motorola in 2003 to help it replace its scratch-prone plastic screens. Took Lens Technology public. A $9 billion net worth makes her the richest self-made woman. Michael Rapino, 51 CEO, LIVE NATION UNITED STATES Entertainment The king of live music. Put on concerts in 40 countries last year and is dominant in ticket sales via Ticketmaster. Ra pi no has also made a land grab for festivals, including Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo and Electric Daisy Carnival, and is behind big tours, including those by U2, Madonna and Jay Z. TIM PANNELL; JAMEL TOPPIN; THOS ROBINSON/GETTY IMAGES 40 | FORBES JUNE <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2017</strong>
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