After months of deep thinking & a lot of discussions with some very smart people, I’ve decided to write an article for the first time in years to break this down.
Gold. Coins. Intelligence. Three manias, one repeating pattern: the people digging rarely get rich — the people supplying the diggers almost always do.
The Asset
There IS NO ASSET. And that’s a good thing. Read on.
The Prospectors
Picks & Shovels
Infrastructure
Merchants & Services
The Financiers
The Grifters
Every rush has them — know the costume.
The Scoreboard
This is my main Thesis:
In 1849 you could not buy “gold exposure” from your sofa. In 2013 you could — that’s why crypto’s lazy play worked. In 2026 you can’t again: so the Brannan play is back. Don’t pan. Don’t speculate. Stand next to the mine and sell what every miner needs
The AI equivalent of “just buy Bitcoin” doesn’t exist for retail. But the AI equivalent of Brannan’s store absolutely does: every regional business, law firm, mine, and payments company is a miner who must dig and doesn’t know how. They need outfitters.
Every rush casts the same characters. The question is never “should I join the rush?” — it’s “which role am I playing?”
ARCHETYPE 01 • THE TOOLSMITH
Builds what the miners can’t.
Historical Examples:
What was the Tool smith’s Edge?
Technical skill applied to the diggers’ problems rather than to digging. The toolsmith is paid every day of the rush, whether or not any individual miner strikes gold. In trust-starved markets, the assayer’s stamp — verification, audit, quality — is worth more than the gold itself.
The Risk for the toolsmith: Drifting into panning: building speculative products in crowded claims, or trying to compete with the giants who own the mountain. The mountain is a supplier, not a rival.
ARCHETYPE 02 • THE MERCHANT
Owns the store, spreads the word.
Historical Examples:
The Edge:
Connections, sales, and operating ability — converting excitement into contracts. Miners don’t buy the best shovel; they buy from the merchant they trust who’s standing right there. Distribution beats invention in every rush.
The Risk for the Merchant is selling vapor to ride the hype. Brannan’s store thrived because the goods were real. One overpromised sale burns the trust moat that is the entire strategy.
For anyone who isn’t a chipmaker, a cloud, or a sovereign fund, the open layer is services and applications — outfitting the miners. Three storefronts, in order of how fast they pay:
PLAY 01 • CASH NOW
Outfitting expeditions.
Done-for-you builds, integrations, and deployments for businesses that must adopt AI but can’t build it themselves. Sell the expedition kit, not the nails — outcome-priced engagements over hourly billing.
PLAY 02 • RECURRING
The assay office.
Vertical, trust-grade products for niches with real stakes — compliance, verification, audit trails, regulated industries. Small markets with zero tourist competition and recurring revenue that survives the bust.
PLAY 03 • LEVERAGE
The miner’s school.
Training and enablement: teach organizations’ own people to use the tools. Low delivery cost, scales through reputation, and builds the funnel for Plays 01-02 — positioning as the trusted name when bigger budgets arrive.
Every boom has a winter. Brannan survived 1855 because miners still needed dry goods. The durable position is one where revenue survives a hype pullback — recurring contracts with customers whose need is operational, not fashionable.
There is also the MASSIVE gap between those few who chose to upskill over the past few years ahead of “The 3rd Rush”, to REALLY understand Ai – not in theory but in practice with a highly commercial problem-solving approach- VS the 99.999% that haven’t, but know they need to ‘do something’ or be left behind.
I have seen things in Ai that will look like miracles to many people.
The Tech is far more advanced today than most realize. The misconception is that ‘it will disrupt in 3-5 years’. No it’s RIGHT NOW and the industry feels like 2016 crypto again in terms of funding, experimentation, startup fever – except this time it’s the professionals doing real, sustainable work.
If you have a large complex problem to solve or want to quickly develop an Ai Strategy for your Business – drop me a note on fran@techemyadvisory.co & I can refer you to close friends performing miracles in Ai at scale.
