I've founded a company through an acquisition and led mobile for another. Life was definitely much much better before the acquisitions. But the perception that it's anything but a first world first world problem ... is a bit misleading and entitled.
That's a very dismissive attitude toward real emotional attachments. The loss of something you've poured your life into can genuinely be traumatic, shocking, and dismaying.
I don't like the notion of applying the "first-world problem" dismissal to things that aren't trivialities. It's one thing to laugh about how you have to get up from the couch to get a remote. It's another thing entirely to talk about major changes to one's career, wiping away years of their work, or the loss of something they care deeply about as a "first-world problem".
Sure, getting acquired might be a "good problem to have", but it doesn't make its toll any less real.
I mean nothing ... violent or otherwise unpleasant by this, but it's really important to learn to let go. You pushed the rock up the hill for a while and now maybe it's somebody else's turn.
IMO, it's important to retain the capacity for grace in these things. Not least for your own sake, much less you're career.
I would read the parts of Shelby Foote's "Civil War" surrounding Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. It helped. Whatever else may be said of Lee, he was a master of grace under pressure.
Fair enough. There are real and powerful emotions at play.
But it's a bit of a stretch to suggest an employee at a company founded 5 years ago has "poured their life into."
Personally, I'll reserve evocative language of loss for things beyond a strategic shift at the office - but I shouldn't judge others who view things differently.
Consider, briefly, that the relevant question is what it meant to the OP, and clearly for her it had that impact. Having been through many of the same experiences (I, too, was an early Parse engineer, though I left about a year after the acquisition), I can tell you those feelings are real, and that it's definitely possible to form that kind of attachment to your work in well under 5 years.
There's a major difference between being in leadership and being on the line. You signed up for an acquisition -- the employee worked for you partially because you weren't <insert big company here>.
I guess as a founder you were rewarded when it came to being acquired. I am not sure what position OP had but I think it accurately conveys feelings of any ordinary (but loyal) employee.
We cannot ask for employees that are engaged, purposeful, passionate, and committed without also expecting negative feelings to happen when things don't work out. If you ask people to care about their company and their colleagues, fucking own it when they actually do.
That's my experience at least. Not all acquisitions are rosy experiences for the employees. Sometimes employees get blindsided when they show up to work one day to be told the company has been sold.
I've founded a company through an acquisition and led mobile for another. Life was definitely much much better before the acquisitions. But the perception that it's anything but a first world first world problem ... is a bit misleading and entitled.