Reflecting on conversations with end users, partners, and VMware employees at VMware Explore this year, it is clear that the community is processing the Broadcom acquisition through the lens of the Five Stages of Grief, defined initially by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.

This emotional model, typically used to describe loss, proved uncannily applicable to the corporate transition where the much larger Broadcom acquired the "beloved" VMware. However, VMware is absolutely not dying and remains a strong, vibrant company with significant autonomy. The necessary changes in its structure and culture mean that it is fundamentally a different company than it was before the acquisition, forcing its community to cope with the reality of that change.

This podcast is based on an article that I wrote for Virtualization and Cloud Review, which you can read at https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2025/09/16/the-five-stages-of-grief-coping-with-broadcoms-acquisition-of-vmware.aspx