A counter example would be Weaveworks(folks behind Flux/FluxCD and many other widely used oss tools). I'm sure the ex employees would've preferred to get acquihired vs closing up for good. I highly doubt Styra was pulling in enough money to fund their business, and the days of zirp are long gone, so I doubt they would've been able to raise another round to keep the lights on for another few years.
ControlPlane was able to hire (not acqui-) a few of the FluxCD maintainers and other WeaveWorks staff to continue supporting the project — we did what we could, agree this is better for Styra folk than the uncertainty of closing up shop.
The shop (Styra) did get closed. A few of the most senior maintainers were hired by Apple. Many - including anyone not directly involved in engineering of the OSS product - are now looking for jobs.
