I believe it was a blessing. One door shut, another one, a few months later opened. I had to move from Southern California to the Bay... where my salary was a little more than 1.5x the previous salary and this company, a video game developing company, interestingly, didn't have such requirements in order to work there or come into office (it was like 90% remote work, only came into office to work on projects with my team).
Nope, they didn't have the last laugh. Good thing I didn't sign the NDA either at the time of termination.