Billionaire Puts His Success Down To A Letter Getting Lost In The Post

The 39-year-old was waiting for an acceptance letter for one of Australia's top military institutions. He should have been going to the institution after finishing high school. But the letter got lost in the post.

When the piece of paper finally arrived, Scott had already opted to go down the route of university, which is where he met his business partner and friend, Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Now the pair are founders and CEOs of software company Atlassian, which has been valued at $US25 billion (£18.8bn) and the two men are worth an estimated $US7bn (£5.3bn) each.

Growing up as the eldest of four children in a working-class family took its toll, as he remembers desperately wanting a computer.

He explained: "I wanted a computer really badly because my friend had one and I knew you could play games on it. I remember emotionally blackmailing my parents and at one stage crying to get a computer - I feel horrible now, because my parents couldn't really afford one."

Scott's family did eventually get him a second-hand computer but he gave up with trying to get it to work and instead embarked on a computing and business course at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

After graduation, they didn't set themselves unattainable goals - they didn't want to wear suits to work and hoped to earn a modest $AUD48,500 ($US35,000/£26,000) - similar to what other graduates would be earning at big banks and accountancy firms at the time.

Despite a tricky start, it was 2003 when things changed and the company received a purchase order via fax from American Airlines. In fact, that fax still hangs outside Scott's office.

It took another 12 years for Atlassian - named after the Greek god Atlas - to emerge on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York.

But the real question is - how did they celebrate? In Times Square, obviously, with greasy pizza and cheap champagne. Never change, guys. Never change.