Didn't exercise my options before acquisition, didn't need to. Was paid the same. (Not a life changing amount of money; roughly what I would have gotten by stay

Didn't exercise my options before acquisition, didn't need to. Was paid the same. (Not a life changing amount of money; roughly what I would have gotten by staying at FAANG for the same amount of time. I still consider it a good outcome.) The only difference from not exercising was I skipped a bunch of paperwork both at exercise and at acquisition time. On the other hand, the paperwork might have been interesting to learn more about how startup acquisitions work, and might have contained numbers that I would have liked to see. So in hindsight, I wish I had exercised at least a few of my options just for the sake of participating in the acquisition process as a shareholder. I don't know if my experience is representative, though. I can certainly imagine that some exits might treat option holders differently than shareholders. I don't know the legality of that.