S1E4: He runs PR for deep tech startups
Sam Polstein on why he thinks about context engineering more than prompt engineering, and why every media database he has tried is three weeks out of date.
Public relations
Deep-tech comms and PR: pitching, drafting, and the point where AI-written outreach stops working.
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What's working
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How Claude Code replaced a $20,000-a-year platform
Sam Polstein builds competitor dashboards and answer engine analytics with no coding experience, replacing reporting that once cost $20,000 a year.
What Sam Polstein keeps in a folder called good writing
Sam Polstein puts AI output quality at 90% decided before the prompt. What is in his context library, why it is markdown, and why he owns the files.
What's not working
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How Sam Polstein builds a media list, and where AI fails him
A deep tech comms lead on why AI cannot build a media list: the signals are unpublished, recent coverage disqualifies, and a three-week lag is useless.
Can AI write comms copy that anyone remembers?
Not from scratch, says Sam Polstein: models have no emotion and a recognisable tone. Three mitigations he uses, and the fifty percent draft to never send.
AI tools used
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Can AI monitor the news for your PR clients?
PeakMetrics, Truescope, NewsCatcher and NewsWhip monitor news in real time for comms teams. What each covers, and how to test relevance before buying.
Best AI tools for journalist research in 2026
Propel PRM, Intelligent Relations, Shadow and Pressmaster.ai for media list building, what each does, and the six tests to run before you buy.
Best AI tools for a deep tech PR agency in 2026
Claude, Obsidian, Claude Cowork, Claude Code and Google Drive. Thirteen products named on the record by Sam Polstein, and only two are PR software.
The $20,000 tool a comms team now builds for itself
Social listening platforms charged agencies around $20,000 a year. Sam Polstein now builds client dashboards himself with virtually no coding experience.
What needs to be built
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What client-aware news intelligence is, and why nobody has built it
Monitoring platforms know the news, not your clients. The comms product request Sam Polstein described, the nine requirements, and the gap for builders.
The journalist tool Sam Polstein wants argues back
Sam Polstein wants a tool that answers a plain question about a named reporter and disagrees with him. A three-week data lag is why nothing qualifies.
AI is bad at media lists, and the reason is not data
Media list building resists AI because the task is predicting an unwritten story from private signals. Sam Polstein's freshness threshold: three weeks.
Product requests
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