AI Read Me File

Sam built an AI system to create personalized biography summaries that extract the most relevant insights for him. Here's how he did it and how to make it even better.

The biography processing system

• Takes biography EPUBs and processes them through Claude AI
• Creates structured summaries with key insights and anecdotes
• Generates visual timelines with relevant photos from the era
• Took about 45 minutes to set up initially
• Has done this for 3-4 different people he's studying

What gets extracted

• Founder's Playbook section: Tailored insights based on Sam's day-to-day business challenges
• Key anecdotes: Stories that demonstrate principles (like Ted Turner getting on hands and knees to push a ball with his nose for promotion)
• Timeline structure: Makes it easier to understand the full arc before diving into details
• Cross-biography patterns: Similar to David Senra's approach of identifying trends across multiple biographies

Making the system smarter over time

• Feed back what resonated and why after reading
• Tell the AI: "The things that I remembered that I took away was this for this reason"
• Create a "read me file" of things that resonate with you
• Have the system check against this file for future biographies
• System learns your preferences: types of anecdotes, types of insights, reasons they matter

Automating the entire workflow

• Use an AI agent to handle the full process weekly
• Agent finds relevant biographies based on your interests
• Downloads the PDFs/EPUBs automatically
• Processes them through the tool
• Delivers via email or converts to a personal podcast
• Creates a subscription to your own personalized content feed

Why this approach works

• Reading Wikipedia/summaries first makes the full biography easier to follow
• Knowing the ending helps you spot patterns and foreshadowing
• Puts information into mental "buckets" as you read
• Prevents bouncing before getting to the good parts
• Extracts hard-to-find insights that emerge across multiple biographies

Integration with existing knowledge

• Sam's ChatGPT already has context on his strengths, weaknesses, and daily complaints
• The biography insights get tailored to his specific business situations
• Acts as "founder therapy" - provides historical perspective on current challenges
• Reinforces the idea: "we don't need therapy, we need history"