[depoll]

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.

[ArkyBeagle]

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.

[dquail]

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.

[depoll]

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.