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"If I were starting Atlassian today, I wouldn't have stayed here"

- Scott Farquar, CEO of Atlassian

http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/557248/atlassian-ceo...

Besides, Atlassian is now officially a UK company.

Australia is indeed a rich country. Lots of funding is probably available. Laws seem simpler than in Europe. I don't know whether Scott is comparing Australia to UK/US or to other more latin countries like Spain or France.

> I don't know whether Scott is comparing Australia to UK/US or to other more latin countries like Spain or France.

Both Spain and France are European countries.

> Australia is one of the richest countries on earth, with a median adult net worth higher

Certainly true if you take the net present value of the resources buried beneath the huge outback and apportion it against the low citizen count. Canada has the same geography and demographics so would be in the same net worth per capita situation. If you instead use the demand from potential immigrants and supply of unused and repurposable land to measure net worth, you'd get a similar result. But to compensate against the risk of invasion, both countries have had to become the 51st and 52nd states of the USA from the defense perspective.

Who the hell would invade us? There's no-one even close. This is pretty bizarre

Australia is one of the richest countries in the world because we imported a decent work ethic and have lots of natural resources. We also core very highly on "great places to live" lists because we all live close to the beach.

It's awesome here, and if we can just get rid of the catholic idiot in charge and get someone in who understands about the intertubes and the NBN and why investing in tech is a good idea then we're all set :)

> Who the hell would invade us?

"You may not be interested in war but war is interested in you." - Leo Tolstoy

Unfortunately the investment culture in Australia is a lot more risk averse. There are exceptions, but raising money for new tech here is much harder than it should be given the relative strength of our economy.

For bootstrapped companies of course this is less of an issue, the high cost of living and small local market are more of a problem. The beauty of software, though, is we can sell online into the large (and culturally-similar-enough) US market, which is where most of my customers have always been.

Yes the key to success in Australia is bootstrap and export. Now the dollar has come down from its ludicrous level to just somewhat over valued this is more viable. I do still miss the days when I got A$2 for ever US$ though, but it is better than in 2012 when I was getting A$0.90 for every US$.

> have shown what can be accomplished

That was never the proper question. The proper question is what's the relative difference in the magnitude & probability of success, between the different regions. This matters, because success is so extremely difficult to achieve in startups already.

> outcomes are more binary in the US - that's mostly a Silicon Valley cultural thing.

It's an investor thing, not a cultural thing. If the business doesn't reach an exit, then the investor (nearly always) gets absolutely nothing, no matter how many millions the company is profiting per year. Tech startups generally never pay out dividends. All that money goes back to the employees and other expenses. Nothing to the investors. Never exiting = equivalent to the company imploding as a completely failure, from an investor's financial perspective.

> stay domestic and contribute to building up the tech scene there.

If startups want to build up their ecosystem, the more effective approach is to go to where the money is, get the money, and THEN take that money and success back to their home community. Exactly as the Skype guys did for Estonia, or as many founders have done for Israel. #1 get the money #2 bring it back. 2 optimized steps, not a single step.

This small town concept of just guilt-tripping the poor desperate founders to never leave their home town out of loyalty simply hurts everyone. It's backwards thinking like this that keeps the smaller towns smaller and less successful.

> The author talks about American entrepreneurs being, basically, obsessed with get rich quick schemes, and that outcomes are more binary in the US - that's mostly a Silicon Valley cultural thing.

That's true, but the US VC isn't going to fund you to move to Portland or Austin or Boulder. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

Most of the capital is effectively controlled by large pension companies, advised by a small number of pretty traditional consultants, and little goes into VC.

This (Used to work for the largest of them all) and one of the slowest internet speeds of the western worlds. Almost everything in Australia is a monopoly: kmart, target, the biggest grocery chain are all owned by one company. 90% of the internet infrastructure is owned by a single company. Yet people dont react because real estate exposure.

Two companies. It's more duopoly rather than monopoly but they track each others prices to ensure they aren't offering anything cheaper than the other.