The Mountain That Ate Men

In the early 2000s, the rise of mobile phones and laptops brought with it a boom in the demand for a rare mineral: coltan.

Most people had never heard of it. But inside the Democratic Republic of Congo, it was suddenly everything. Armed groups seized mines. Children were forced to dig. Villages were wiped out in territorial skirmishes.

Coltan made your phone vibrate. It also helped fuel one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 21st century.

Sometimes, the most valuable things come from the darkest places.

In 1545, a local shepherd chasing runaway llamas in the high Andes of what is now Bolivia stumbled on a glint in the rocks. It wasn’t gold—it was something far more plentiful: silver.

That single discovery changed the world.

The mountain was called Cerro Rico—“The Rich Hill.” Within months, word reached the Spanish colonial powers, and soon they descended in force. Conquistadors, crown officials, merchants, and miners swarmed the region. The nearby outpost of Potosí transformed overnight into one of the wealthiest cities on Earth.

At its peak, Potosí had over 150,000 residents—a massive population by 16th-century standards, larger than London or Paris at the time. It had ornate churches, lavish theaters, and a mint that churned out silver coins by the millions.

The mountain was said to be so rich that you could build a bridge of silver from Potosí to Madrid—and still have metal left over.

But the silver didn’t come freely.

The Spanish implemented a brutal labor system called the mita, conscripting indigenous men by the tens of thousands to work in the mines. They were forced into tunnels that collapsed, filled with toxic mercury vapors, and ran so deep they felt like death traps. Some estimates say the average life expectancy of a mita laborer was just a few months.

When native populations declined from disease and exhaustion, enslaved Africans were brought in to replace them.

By the 1600s, Potosí was fueling the Spanish Empire. Its silver funded wars, paid debts, and helped create the first truly global economy. Chinese silks were bought with silver mined in the Andes. European power shifted along with its flow.

But underneath all that shine was a staggering cost.

Modern historians estimate that as many as 8 million people died in and around Cerro Rico during the colonial period. Whether from cave-ins, poisoning, overwork, or cold—it became known as “the mountain that eats men.”

And the cruel irony? Much of the silver didn’t last.

Wars drained it. Corruption funneled it. And inflation—driven in part by too much silver flooding the market—eroded its value. By the 1800s, Potosí was a shell of itself. Its wealth had vanished. Its mountain was hollowed out.

Today, Cerro Rico still looms over the town—scarred, unstable, and still mined by desperate laborers using tools barely more advanced than those from 400 years ago.

It’s a monument to greed. To extraction. To short-term thinking. A place where wealth rose fast—and fell faster.

Every financial boom feels great—right up until it doesn’t.

Potosí was the Silicon Valley of the 1500s. A surge of innovation, capital, ambition, and momentum. But like most booms, it came with a blind spot: the belief that the good times would keep rolling forever.

History’s full of these: the housing boom of the mid-2000s. The dot-com frenzy of the late ’90s. Crypto spikes. Meme stocks. Oil rushes. Railroad mania. Tulip bulbs.

In every case, the people in the middle of the boom thought they were building something permanent. And in some ways, they were—just not always for themselves.

Because booms reward early movers but punish late assumptions. They encourage acceleration over reflection. And if you’re not careful, they can hollow you out—financially or otherwise.

That doesn’t mean all growth is dangerous. But unchecked growth almost always is.

The trick is knowing when you’re riding a boom—and knowing when it’s time to stop extracting and start protecting.

Cerro Rico didn’t just run dry of silver. It ran dry of resilience. No plan for sustainability. No effort to build something beyond the silver rush. When the mountain emptied, so did the future.

You can see versions of that in personal finance, too.

People overleverage to buy into the frenzy. They chase the hot thing with money they need elsewhere. They build their lifestyle around a number that isn’t guaranteed. They forget that momentum can turn into gravity.

The smarter path? Keep your eyes open. Use growth wisely. Make hay while the sun shines—but build shelter, too.

Potosí didn’t fall because it failed to grow. It fell because it failed to prepare for when growth stops.

And eventually, it always does.