Ask HN: Post-Acquisition Depression?

[anonymous29385]

Has anyone else experienced a deep depression or emptiness after being acquired? My company was acquired recently, and I know I shouldn't be complaining, because I made off very well, but I'm increasingly finding it difficult to stay motivated.

Pre-acquisition, it was my dream job, and I woke up each day excited to work on cool technical problems. Now I feel like I have exactly the sort of 9-5 office job I always promised myself I'd never take, and I'm finding it difficult to care about anything that I'm working on.

I know that things probably aren't as dismal as I feel they are, but it's just hard to accept that a product I cared about, and felt ownership over, is now just another checkbox on a large enterprise company's products page.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you get over those feelings? I know quitting is an option, but I'd really prefer to make the best of it, at least while the golden handcuffs are still on.

[Scifihiker7091]

Money does not equate to happiness. You met your fiduciary responsibilities in negotiating the best sales price possible for your investors, but you didn’t negotiate for the best life possible during your handcuffitude. Everything is renegotiable if the cost to the acquirer is less than the value of you staying.

Take three days off: call in sick if you have to. Drive a half day away to somewhere else. With a pad and pen, spend the time designing what you WANT to do during your servitude. Work four 10 hour days and enjoy a three day weekend? Get to spend a few days each month visiting the other divisions—-maybe they could use an interim division exec for awhile. Or?

When you return to the office, set up a meeting with the “decider” and show them your finalized list and ask this one question:

“What can you give me on this list to make me want to stay?”

Good luck!

[tlb]

Agree. You have leverage, not just due to sunk costs but because people in the organization staked their reputations on the acquisition being successful. So you may be able to write your own job description.

But many big companies are so broken that there's no job description that could make an entrepreneurial person happy within.

[anonymous29385]

Thank you for the advice. There's a lot of good ideas in here to think about.

[tlb]

Been there, felt the same way.

I tried to start a new project in the acquirer, but it was an uphill slog against corporate inertia. Being an intrapreneur requires an entirely different skillset of corporate ego fluffing.

I didn't want to give up and get paid to slack. It felt wrong. So I left (leaving a good chunk of money on the table) and started something new and was much happier.

You only have one life. If you don't have to spend another year of it being a corporate stooge for money, don't.

[mtmail]

I worked with people in your situation. They had to stay on 12 months after acquistion, each made millions. The former managing director was stripped off so much power she decided to work as customer care staff instead. CTO saved all his holiday days (25 in Germany) so he can take the last month off instead of going to the office. The third found had a deal to get promoted to vice president international and more or less jet-setted from one office to the next, as far as I remember he didn't accomplish much but he switched so often people didn't notice. None stayed a day a longer than contractually required.

Can you try becoming an outside consultant to the company instead?

[sloaken]

Were you a founder? Owner? etc?

It is tough to go from 'big fish - little pond' to 'little fish - big pond'. The drop in adrenaline is probably the drive in the depression.

Did you take a break? Have you taken time to just think about what you want in life? I personally recommend travel, by yourself, to give you time to think and feel. Hint hint - a bicycle and 3 months alone is great.

Optionally, visit a life coach or psychologist. Someone to talk it out with.

[athesyn]

Have you tried drying your tears with bank notes? jk. I don't know quit then? Unless you're contractually obligated to stay I'm not sure there's anything you can do aside from either quitting or working towards changing your circumstances assuming you have the influence.