5/05/2026
On Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 1,600 Atlassian employees were told by email that their job no longer existed.
That email followed a pre-recorded video from CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes. Affected employees were then given limited time on Slack to say goodbye before losing access.
If you were one of those 1,600 people, you went into the weekend with a very uncertain future.
But so did Atlassian.
Because this is not just a layoff story. It is a leadership story.
A trust story. An AI story.
And a Future of Work story.
For more than a decade, Kim Seeling Smith has been helping leaders make sense of the forces reshaping business, talent and the Future of Work.
“The Atlassian redundancy story is not just a headline. It’s a real-time case study in how AI, leadership and trust are colliding in the future of work,” said Kim Seeling Smith, Founder and CEO at Ignite Global Pty Ltd.
Read the full report below.