Ask HN: Employee experiences after acquisition

I'm lead engineer in a 12 person start-up with a novel product in niche area. It's a great company and strong team but with, in my opinion, poor equity distribution. Being investor backed means an exit will have to occur at some point and frankly I'd see that as a bad thing. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has been through an exit and didn't cash out. Did the team stay together or did it end there? Did you follow the product to it's new owner or were you cast aside?