> In a gold rush the big winners among the shovel makers will do worse than the big winners in the resource owning tier (those that own the gold, mines, land or

> In a gold rush the big winners among the shovel makers will do worse than the big winners in the resource owning tier (those that own the gold, mines, land or oil). That's true, but what's the expected value for each? It's obviously better to be a big winner in the resource owning tier, but how likely is that outcome relative to being a big winner in the shovel maker tier? How does a moderate winner in the shovel making tier compare to the moderate winner in the resource tier? And you're right that high tier positioned companies like Pepsi or Coca Cola are strictly better off than the aluminum can manufacturers, but how do you know without hindsight that Pepsi and/or Coca Cola would be the big 2 sugary drinks, when the game started in the late 1800s? The aluminum companies were going to succeed no matter who won the sugary drink race, but picking the winner of the sugary drink race is like picking the right race horse. MySpace operated on a sufficiently high level on the pyramid value (and were the first movers), but it would have been foolish to bet everything on MySpace. Likewise, Bitcoin is one of hundreds of crypto tokens, and it wasn't obvious to a lot of people in 2010 that Bitcoin would even survive by 2021, much less grow to be the biggest.