I went to Sonora with my family recently, to see friends. However we also took the time for a little side adventure and visited Jamestown for some gold digging - an experience I recommend.
If you reside in California, at some point you will learn the traces and impact of the Gold Rush era. The Gold Rush transformed this part of the US (for better and for worse, for people and for businesses) in more than one way. It also was what enabled California to become a state.
Gold-digging might sound exciting to many, but I tell ya it is dirty work! The act entails digging with shovels into hard mud, in often scorching hot weather, where the dirt is full of rocks and roots. It involves standing knee deep in ice-cold river water for hours at length, while forcefully hacking away at the mud and soil in it. The thrill is real though: what if we strike gold? You end up skipping the shovel and hatchet at times, to rest your bent backs, and instead dig in with your hands and nails to find that gold-promise of reddish mud, to fill up bucket after bucket. And at the end of it, four or five huge buckets later - whatever two hours give you or your muscles can master - you may end up with a handful of tiny glitter flakes. And yes, it does make you feel like a winner! :)
Many times during this activity we made jokes about how gold digging reminded us of how it is to build a startup. I.e. not glamorous at all, tedious and exhausting, hard work with no rest for the chance of glitter flakes at the end, without any guarantee, and only the glimmer of hope getting you through the fatigue - oh well, we had rubber boots on, but the jokes and references were real! :) This is not the analogy I am going for with this blog post though, there is a much better lesson to be learned here..
Who won in the gold rush? Was it really the diggers? According to wikipedia:
“Some gold-seekers made a significant amount of money.[ref] On average, half the gold-seekers made a modest profit, after taking all expenses into account.”
The ones making far more money than the miners were the merchants. The same source tells us:
“The wealthiest man in California during the early years of the rush was Samuel Brannan, a tireless self-promoter, shopkeeper and newspaper publisher.[109] Brannan opened the first supply stores in Sacramento, Coloma, and other spots in the goldfields. Just as the rush began he purchased all the prospecting supplies available in San Francisco and re-sold them at a substantial profit.[109]“
The analogy I am heading for here is with Generative AI. Generative AI has become the new gold - or so most organizations believe. Where I am focusing my attention and curiosity is however on the enabling technologies. I want to find the hatchets and shovels and buckets that will allow Enterprises to gain the gold. Generative AI is a volatile endeavor and it comes down to trust in the data and in the output, auditability, and transparency to the end users, as well as ML Security. The startups I am looking for right now are the merchants for productionizing AI - and particularly Generative AI - for enterprises.