The Machine That Translates My Ideas for Different People
TLDR: I built a system that takes the same idea and reshapes it for different audiences — friends, engineers, kids, executives. Same truth, different packaging. This site is the first output. The narrative engine is what powers it.
The problem
I have a bunch of projects and ideas, but sharing them is hard. Not because the ideas are secret — because they’re trapped in formats that only I can understand.
My project specs are dense technical documents. My notes are full of jargon. When a friend asks “what are you working on?” I end up giving a rambling explanation that either oversimplifies to the point of being wrong, or goes too deep and their eyes glaze over.
The frustrating part is that the core idea is usually simple and interesting. “I built a system that argues with my own beliefs” is a compelling concept. “I built a pgvector-backed knowledge graph with hybrid scoring and automated synthesis” is the same thing, but only an engineer would care about that sentence.
The idea is the same. The packaging needs to be completely different depending on who’s listening.
What I’m building
A narrative engine. It takes raw source material — my project specs, notes, and conversations — and transforms it into audience-specific versions. Same core idea, different surface.
For a friend: “I read hundreds of articles and couldn’t remember what I thought about any of them. So I built a second brain that argues with me.”
For an engineer: “PKB: thesis-driven knowledge graph with pgvector embeddings, hybrid connection scoring, and automated synthesis. 160 tests, runs on a Mac mini.”
For a kid: “What if your notebook could think? Imagine all your notes could talk to each other and tell you things you never noticed.”
For a product manager: “Knowledge workers consume content but don’t synthesize it. The market lacks tools that challenge existing beliefs rather than just filing information.”
Same project. Four completely different entry points. Each one accurate, each one optimized for how that audience thinks.
How the themes work
I’ve defined six audience profiles, each with specific rules about voice, structure, complexity, and emphasis:
Keep it simple (friends and family). Conversational, analogy-driven, focuses on the human problem and what surprised me. No jargon.
Go deep (engineers). Technical, opinionated, full of tradeoffs and implementation details. Jargon expected. Failures included.
Explain like I’m 10 (kids). Story-driven, concrete metaphors from their world, ends with a thought-provoking question. Zero jargon, ever.
Business case (product managers). Problem, market gap, evidence, monetization. Frameworks over feelings.
Quick take (professional network). Hook, skills, outcome. Dense, scannable, written for someone scrolling on their phone.
Executive brief (senior leaders). Vision, timing, defensibility, scalability. Every word earns its place.
Each theme has rules about what to emphasize, what to avoid, and how to handle gaps in the source material. And critically: if the source material doesn’t have enough information for a theme (like market sizing for the executive brief), the system flags it rather than making something up.
Why this matters
We all do a version of this naturally. You explain your job differently to your mom than to a colleague. You tell a story differently to a five-year-old than to your boss. But doing it well, consistently, across multiple audiences, for every project? That’s hard.
The insight is that the translation layer is separable from the ideas themselves. I write the idea once, in whatever messy technical format comes naturally. The narrative engine handles the rest.
This site is the first output surface — a place where the different versions live. Eventually, the same engine will produce voice blogs, diagrams, social posts, and video scripts. Same ideas, any format, any audience.
But honestly, the most valuable thing so far hasn’t been the technology. It’s been the exercise of defining who my audiences are and what they care about. That forced clarity makes everything I communicate better — even the conversations where no engine is involved.
