Because founders and early stock-holding employees want to get paid out, move on to something else, and let someone else handle the long-tail maintenance of the business. This is valuable work in the economy because you want people who are good at starting businesses, proving markets, getting investors, yada yada to be doing that and people who are good at running businesses to do that once it has roots.
The intractable problem is that corporations with loads of capital are the ones equipped to run businesses long-term. I would love a world where an exit is turning the business over to the employees and a newly hired CEO in exchange for a payout from the business itself but massive corporations will pay more, have cash on hand, and won't default.