We are learning the wrong lesson.

We are learning the wrong lesson.
There’s a popular misunderstanding of the “picks and shovels” strategy. The idea comes from the 1848 California Gold Rush, where many of the most durable fortunes were built not by mining gold, but by supplying the miners.

In today’s technological gold rush, we’ve oversimplified the lesson into:
“Sell the tools and infrastructure.”

My question for the class:
Did the people selling picks and shovels KNOW that's where the fortunes would be made? Probably not.

What's more likely is they noticed unmet demand and moved to serve it.

- Scarcity
- Lack of competition
- Distribution advantages
- Discipline to avoid chasing shiny objects

Those were the underlying mechanics, NOT the products they sold.

So, what about today?

Yes, there will be massive winners in tooling and infrastructure. But the fact that everyone is crowding in suggests the biggest opportunities may exist somewhere else entirely.