When I was in my early thirties, I joined a successful, venerable multispecialty group. It had a multigenerational reputation of providing solid, careful, responsive medical care for most patient populations, a good community reputation and name recognition, and a solid referral pipeline.

The physicians were collegial and articulate. The facilities were nearly new. The support systems seemed fine.

I signed up as a worker bee.

It takes decades to demonstrate predictability...but only a few weeks for the assumption to be proven false.

...a little less than eight years later, the group dissolved in bankruptcy.

The senior leadership was completely incapable of addressing basic operational issues. Strategic decisions were laughably bad. And everything steadily worsened...not one thing improved during my time there.

My take-home lesson: just how stupid easy it is to irrevocably squander the crown jewels.

It was a good life lesson.

--sutton
(the surviving senior leadership to this day doesn't have any real clue as to their culpability)
meanwhile, I found myself president of a single-specialty startup at age 40