I made this mistake as a starry eyed 20 y/o. Blood sweet and tears, and the end of the day my piece of the pie got turned into nothing as some VC money moved in

I made this mistake as a starry eyed 20 y/o. Blood sweet and tears, and the end of the day my piece of the pie got turned into nothing as some VC money moved in. My 6 years there working in the data-center at 2am and 70+ hrs weeks became worth just my salary, and then the company/VC decided to IPO in 2008 (yea that's right) within a 2 months of the IPO failing they sold off our clients, gear and let all us go with 1 week notice.