Therapy vs History Framework

Sam built an AI-powered system to extract actionable insights from business biographies. Here's how he did it and why it works.

The core problem with reading biographies

• Hard to track timelines across 400-500 page books
• Difficult to know what applies to your specific situation
• Historical dollar amounts lack modern context (e.g., $50,000 in 1930s vs today)
• Reading multiple biographies on same person creates information overload

The solution: Bio to Notion

• Built using Claude Code/Cowork in 45 minutes
• Uploads 1-5 biographies on same person (PDF, EPUB, MOBI, or text)
• Processes in ~5 minutes
• Outputs structured Notion page

What the system generates

1. Financial summary

   • Deep dive on numbers that Wikipedia doesn't provide
   • Inflation-adjusted dollar amounts for modern context
   • Makes it easier to understand scale of decisions

2. Timeline of key events

   • Chronological structure across multiple biographies
   • 3-5 bullet point summary of journey

3. Founder's playbook

   • Tailored insights based on your personal context
   • Integrates with ChatGPT that knows your strengths/weaknesses
   • Surfaces lessons relevant to what you're experiencing day-to-day

How to make it even more powerful

• Use AI agents to automate the entire workflow
• Agent finds relevant biographies weekly
• Downloads PDFs automatically
• Processes through the tool
• Delivers via email or converts to personal podcast
• System learns what resonates with you over time
• Creates a "README file" of anecdotes and lessons you connect with
• Gets smarter with each biography processed

Why biographies work as "founder therapy"

• Provides perspective on real adversity vs magnified small problems
• "We don't need therapy, we need history"
• Shows successful people doing things "beneath them" (Ted Turner pushing ball with nose, wearing bag over head)
• Removes ego barriers: "If he's willing to get on hands and knees, nothing is beneath me"
• Makes you feel less alone about entrepreneurial struggles

The broader AI opportunity

• Competition is harder but opportunity set is massively bigger
• Like musical chairs: 50x more chairs added, not just more players
• Every product category is up for grabs with AI
• Don't need to be top 1-10% in AI skills
• Just need to be 50th percentile in AI + top 10% in your domain
• AI multiplies against existing skills and knowledge
• Wrong game: trying to beat AI geniuses
• Right game: getting "dangerous enough" to multiply your 10-20 years of domain expertise