> I've seen numerous startups that started in the 2015-2020 timeframe (so existed for 5-10 years) where they didn't outright fail but common got wiped in an acquisition. That's more a consequence of the rise in interest rates and difficult fundraising environment, but it's really rough to plug along at a company for 5-10 years, think you're doing OK, and then your stock is worth nothing.

This literally just happened to me after working at the company for almost 4 years, and yeah it really sucked. Exec team were super excited about the acquisition though of course…