Slash costs/headcount in short term, sell, pocket the cash and get the hell out of dodge.

Not necessarily. If you want the best price for the company, you might want to grow it before you sell it.

New Relic went through a few reorgs during his tenure, but they didn't freeze hiring until after the sale.

Fair, hopefully the gitlab employees won’t get totally screwed!

They hired an axe man, people are getting hurt.

Produce attractive numbers. Often by cutting costs.

There are plenty of due-diligence internal things that need to be put in order to make your company attractive. Processes, documentation, compliance, etc.

Then there are things like having roadmaps for the future to make you look attractive.

Then there are vulture things to make your numbers look good which can range from doing neglected cleanups of actually unnecessary costs to cutting costs in ways that really suck for customers and employees.

Aside from things mentioned by others: Having a network to potential buyers.