I have met many later-in-their-career, senior government folks cultivating a transition into the private sector. They seem particularly vulnerable to this kind

I have met many later-in-their-career, senior government folks cultivating a transition into the private sector. They seem particularly vulnerable to this kind of catastrophe. It's like they have their favored peers who are also retiring & they get them connected to a firm by someone who also left and wants to help out other govies. They do 20 years in the military and then go work in private sector for companies that will sell to the government. So the board gets loaded up with civil servants rather than entrepreneurs. My perception is that their career experience doesn't arm them with the ability to identify a company with inadequate runway & execution talent. They seem to think a a well connected "who-you-know" network would have enough collective wisdom to avoid this scenario, or maybe they don't really consider that failure is possible, given the funding environment of the military.