I don't have experience with an IPO, but I did work for a startup that was acquired by a publicly traded Fortune 500 compnay. Short version is that it wasn't a

I don't have experience with an IPO, but I did work for a startup that was acquired by a publicly traded Fortune 500 compnay. Short version is that it wasn't a pleasant transition. The startup had a niche product in higher ed and had done a really good job cultivating their relationships with customers through top notch customer support and rapid iteration on the engineering side. Typical startup strategies for the most part. Post-acquisition, the support team was essentially goaded into quitting by management, only to realize that the product was far more sophisticated to support than the other products in their portfolio, so they wound up having to rebuild the support team. This was when we realized upper management was a bunch of morons. On the engineering side, they shifted our product development focus to making the entire app a bunch of SPAs because reasons. The core engineering leadership left, and the new hires that were brought in weren't as good. Apathy set in, the company started stiffing us out of promised bonuses, and I left. What I imagine is true for both IPOs and acquisitions is that most publicly traded companies usually care a whole lot more about the bottom line than well-funded startups. Getting rid of the crazy retreats and in-house chef is one thing, but when companies start getting squirrely about compensation, it's a good time to think about what's next.