Alright, but the founders here were already liquidly rich from their IPO? At lease one of the execs (Roberta) was super opposed.

They didn't do it for the personal money, they did it because they thought their shareholders would sue them, at least in part, for turning out a deal that was too good to be true.

Assuming you know what the shareholders and founders and execs were thinking, then yeah - that might not qualify for my definition of exit

Well, that’s what they’re quoted as saying in the article!