AI Gold Rush: You bought a shovel. Now what?

Everyone loves the "AI Gold Rush" cliché. "The guys selling the shovels made all the money." Yes, we get it—Nvidia and big tech are winning.

But that completely ignores the real mystery: the mass psychosis of the buyers.

In 1849, the logic was simple. A prospector bought a shovel because he knew where the gold was. Today, companies are buying "AI shovels," standing in the middle of their open-plan offices, and frantically digging up the carpet, hoping the gold will magically appear.

Why are you buying this?

One could say that there are accounting calculations and promises from the shovel sellers, and if those promises come true, then lagging business will suddenly become highly profitable. But those promises have already changed, and honest visionaries apologised.

To increase productivity? Okay. Do you actually have a massive, unmet market demand that requires that level of output?

To cut headcount? Are you entirely sure how many truly "dispensable" people you have whose jobs an LLM can flawlessly execute?

It’s the ultimate symptom of modern business: buying a solution

to avoid diagnosing the disease.

If your company is lagging, deploying an LLM won't magically create alpha. Before you ask if an AI tool can fix your problem, you have to actually know why your business became inefficient in the first place. Be honest: who in your feed has already bought a shovel and has absolutely no idea where to dig?

The question isn't whether AI is a good shovel.

The question is: what exact corporate black hole are you trying to fill with it?