My Day 2 at Atlassian Team '26: Human Skills Still Matter, What Makes a Great Founder, and Working Out Loud

As I wrapped up the Atlassian Team ‘26 event last week, I remain energized by the connections made and ideas shared. I came back to work and jumped right into configuring the features from the keynotes and setting up a couple environments to use GitHub Copilot agents. The event was everything I would expect from an Atlassian event with a continued focus on people, team culture, and getting work done.

The final day kicked off with a fireside chat led by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit. As exciting as all the AI and technology conversations were, what stuck with me the most was the places they were excited for what the future holds. 

AI as a tool that helps humans go further. 

A point made throughout the talk is that the opportunities for software are only increasing. We will need more software, not less.  The democratization of who can build, what they can build, and how they build has opened the doors for more ideas and businesses to launch. They also had plenty of advice for people getting started on new adventures.

Alexis had three things he looks for in founders:

1. The ability to teach him something new
2. People that are deeply empathetic
3. A leader others will follow. 

That last one really stuck with me. It causes you to reflect about the people in your life. Alexis offered: Would I leave to work for this founder? He emphasized it’s not just being charismatic. “Do people want to join you in this crazy quest?”

What I find interesting about all of these points is how deeply human they are. It’s a continuation of the type of leadership that fosters collaboration. Leaders now and moving forward need to be able to connect with their people and build trust quickly. AI can fake these traits but they are irreplaceable in the reality of sitting down 1 on 1 with another person. Nobody will leave a job to follow an AI but plenty of people will take a leap for a good leader. 

I also appreciated the conversation around parenting. It may not have been as impactful if you’re not a parent. I loved the idea of asking your kids to bring a “big question to dinner”. Kids are so naturally curious that fostering this type of exploration together is a simple way to have them thinking throughout the day and have a genuine conversation during family time. It’s very easy for my wife and me to go back and forth downloading about our day while trying to get our son to talk about his. That usually doesn’t get anything out of my son and the work conversations leave him out too. 

Alexis also shared his thoughts on what’s important for kids to learn in the current age of hyper-intelligent AI. 

• Communication Skills
• Creativity
• Agency
• Empathy
• Curiosity 

Again, deeply human traits that I’d argue have always been necessary to focus on. Information has been at our fingertips with the internet and, for certain groups, centuries with each technical breakthrough from written language, the printing press, the telephone, etc. The people that learned how to take the information, find the important pieces, and create something have always excelled.

Just because AI closes the information gap even further doesn’t mean everyone will use it. 

A session focused on leadership and short form videos was a fascinating discussion of how to connect with a remote, multi-timezone team. Atlassian has Loom for this but you could use Zoom, Teams or any tool you already have. The idea is that instead of typing up a long email, wiki page or throwing everyone in a meeting, create a video to present the information. The team can review at their pace and, if needed, a meeting can be scheduled for the discussion. 

As part of the discussion, the emphasis came back to using these tools to form connection and display the human side of work. The advice across the panel was not to over produce it. If you stumble over a word or your background is a little messy, just lean into it. People want to see that side and see their leaders as real people. 

“The more leaders are being vulnerable and showing their raw self, the more the team will feel a connection to their leadership” - Colleen Blake, COO of ServiceRocket

The panel also emphasized the idea of “working out loud”. Leveraging the tools to showcase what you’re working on helps you stand out but also helps people in the organization generate their own ideas based on what you share. It’s not meant for bragging but creating visibility for your work is important as you develop in your career. Everyone needs to advocate for themselves. Especially as teams have grown larger with managers leading larger teams. 

Putting all these ideas into practice takes real work and partnership. The tools only work when the people using them are set up for success. I’ve already set up a couple environments to leverage Atlassian’s Teamwork Graph, improve Rovo, and kick off agents for GitHub Copilot right in Jira and I’m excited to do more. Consider this my example of working out loud.