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by PragmaticPulp
1728 days ago
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It's only two years. Buckle down and give a good-faith effort to do it right. Be careful about becoming adversarial with the acquirer. I watched one acquired founder lose a lot of money by actively fighting against the new parent company and not really doing his job (e.g. avoided meetings, fomented discontent in his teams, secretly encouraged his team to leave). Any negative comments you make in public or private can be used against you, so refrain from saying anything bad about the parent company in any context, no matter how tempting. |
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I also watched an acquired founder act out. Although in my case they exited without leaving a bunch of money on the table, they made life unpleasant for people in both the acquired and acquiring company before and after they left. There are people who worked with them for years who would never join another startup with them because they were so self-indulgent.
It’s only 104 weeks for (presumably) a lot of money, and you are (presumably) getting a lot more out of this than the rest of the employees at your acquired company who (presumably) didn’t get a lot of say over who acquired them (unlike you).
Bury your ego and focus on creating the best possible outcome for the people who bet on you when your company was young and success was not assured. Presumably some of them are planning to stay with the acquiring company long-term; don’t create a situation where they get branded as “troublemakers” because of something you do now.
You might have the opportunity to be personally influential in the strategic direction of the (bigger) acquiring company. That might not be your first choice of long-term career, but right now you have an opportunity to do something different that might actually be fun (for a while).
Even if you don’t and your job is literally “integration” for the next two years just suck it up and do the best job you can for your people.
If you are planning to exit ASAP then even the politics can be fun because they don’t really impact you long term. Spend your time figuring out who the players are, who has the power, what motivates them. Find the team that was trying to build whatever you are now providing (and who hate you with a passion for taking the money they could have used) then defang them or co-opt them. At the very least make sure that your team don’t inadvertently walk into the middle of some political fight.
That said, this is also your opportunity to be literally irresponsible. You were in charge of a startup. You couldn’t really unplug and the buck stopped with you. Now (presumably) you are a couple of layers down in the org. Enjoy the new luxury of showing up late on Monday, leaving early on Friday, having a regular lunch break, disconnecting over the weekend, taking all your PTO.