I built a content machine. It turned me into a one-person media company, has driven tens of millions in pipeline for @tenex_labs, and is allergic to AI-slop. It has also turned all of my employees into content creators. I may opensource the whole thing, but for now, I'm going to share how I built it & how it works. Feel free to copy & paste the steps to Claude/Codex if you want to build your own content machine. Step 1: Map out the process In order to make any of your work AI-native, you need to understand the way in which it's been done historically. This is why business context & domain expertise REALLY matters, even in a post-AI world. Content has been my bread & butter for the last decade, so I started by pulling out an 8.5x11 sheet of printer paper and drawing the traditional process. 1) Look for inspiration 2) Pick a 10x content idea 3) Research the idea 4) Brain dump all of my thoughts about the idea 5) Decide the post format I want to create 6) Create a draft of the post 7) Edit the post 8) Create derivative versions of the post 9) Go live 10) Track performance Step 2: Where am I needed vs. not needed? I am needed for the first & final mile: First mile: picking the idea/direction & providing all of the necessary context Final mile: going through the final draft with a fine tooth comb & giving final sign-off. AI can handle the rest: Looking for inspiration, researching the idea, pulling my thoughts out, writing the post, doing a first edit, creating derivative content, and tracking performance. Step 3: Build the Content Machine The machine is one pipeline, run end-to-end or step-by-step. It is a directory of skills that mimic the steps in the content process that I've delegated. 1) The Oracle [AI] Mines my Slack, Notion, call transcripts and Gmail for spikes, moments I naturally said something worth expanding, while the Internet Reader curates an external feed of X accounts & websites I've selected. Qualifying ideas (≥6/10) are written to The Vault (a notion database of content ideas). 2) Select the idea from The Vault [Human] 3) The Researcher [AI] Before any interview, build a sourced research-report.md: TL;DR, key facts with links, current developments, what's already been said, contrarian angles, and open questions for the interview. Claims are adversarially checked; fact is separated from opinion. 4) Interview Panel [AI + Human] Six world-class interviewers (Joe Rogan, Howard Stern, Michael Barbaro, etc) ask 12–15 questions, one at a time, each pushing a different dimension...and never satisfied with vague answers. Won't advance without 2–3 specific stories, real numbers, and emotional specificity. 5) Production [AI] The interview becomes a raw .md file: transcript, key stories, core insights, quotable moments, emotional anchor, surprising reveals, and the "so what." This raw file is sacred: my exact words, never paraphrased away. 6) Refinement [AI + Human] I tell the machine what content type I want to create. It reads my custom style guide + past feedback lessons + content-type spec, then drafts in my voice...pulling real stories and quotes from the raw file. The #1 rule: write like you're texting a friend. Supports long posts, LinkedIn, X threads, and more. 7) Writer's Council [AI] Six expert reviewers (Shaan Puri, Morgan Housel, David Perell, etc) score the draft through their own lens, splitting fixes into editorial (the machine can rewrite) and information gaps (only the creator can answer...these route back to the interview panel). 8) Revision Loop [AI] Iterate until council scores 9/10. 9) Repurposing Engine [AI] One anchor → 10+ natively-formatted derivatives, each re-hooked for its platform and each held to the same full Council → revision bar of 9/10. This is how two people produce like a hundred. 10) Final revision [Human] 11) Learning Loop [AI] After approval, the machine compares first draft vs. final, extracts confirmed lessons, and saves them to that creator's content-lessons.md. Every future first draft starts smarter. Lessons override the style guide when they conflict. Feel free to steal the machine & ask me any questions about how it works!