authority.md vs Think Like Them: Honest Comparison

Two sites now occupy the same narrow space: free AI personality prompts inspired by named thinkers, and paid structured thinking frameworks for those same thinkers. Think Like Them is the free one. authority.md (us) is the paid one.

This post is a proper comparison rather than marketing. If Think Like Them is the right choice for you, we'll say so — a buyer who picks the wrong tool ends up frustrated with the category, and nobody wins from that.

The quick answer

• You want something free to try right now, you've never used AI personas before, and you mainly use ChatGPT: Think Like Them is probably better for you. Try it first.
• You care about output quality, you use Claude or an AI agent, you want the framework to work reliably without fiddling with prompts each time: authority.md is built for you.
• You're sceptical about whether persona prompts are worth paying for: use Think Like Them to test the idea free. If you like how it works, upgrade to authority.md for better engineering.

No hard sell. The right tool depends on what you're doing.

What each actually gives you

Think Like Them

You pick a persona (Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, ~107 others), click "Try This Persona," and get a prompt you paste into ChatGPT or Claude. The prompt sets up a system-prompt-style instruction like "You are Warren Buffett, a patient value-focused investor..." with a short list of principles.

What this gets you:

• Free
• Instant — you're testing in 30 seconds
• Works in any chat tool
• Good for light, conversational use

What you don't get:

• Structured decision frameworks
• Named mental models you can reference
• A reusable file that loads automatically
• Specific anti-patterns (what they wouldn't do)
• Activation prompts designed for real tasks
• Worked examples

authority.md

You pick a framework from 430 thinkers, pay $4.99, and within 60 seconds you get an email with two files: a native Claude Skill (.zip) and a plain .md file. Each framework is engineered to ~2,000 words covering:

• Core philosophy (2-3 sentences grounded in documented worldview)
• Five named mental models with concrete examples
• Decision heuristics the person actually used
• Five signature questions in their voice
• Anti-patterns — what they explicitly wouldn't do
• A copy-paste activation prompt for new tasks
• A worked example

What this gets you:

• Native Claude Skill auto-invocation (upload once, Claude uses it automatically when relevant)
• Works in Claude, ChatGPT Custom GPTs, Gemini, agent system prompts
• Structured enough that AI actually executes against it, not just adopts a voice
• Specific named models you can reference ("apply Circle of Competence to this")
• Designed for decision work, not conversation

What you don't get:

• Free
• Unlimited personas (our 430 vs their 107 is different — we're larger — but either way, not infinite)

The real difference: prompts vs frameworks

This is the thing that matters.

A prompt says "act as X." The AI adopts a voice. It might talk like Warren Buffett but it doesn't reason like him. Ask it to evaluate an investment and it gives you a Buffett-flavoured opinion.

A framework gives the AI structured patterns to execute. It has named mental models it applies, specific questions it asks, anti-patterns it flags. Ask it to evaluate an investment and it walks through the models, applies the filters, and writes an actual answer you can act on.

Think Like Them is prompts. We're frameworks.

If that distinction feels abstract, it probably doesn't matter to your use case. Use Think Like Them — it's free and it works. If the distinction sounds important for your work, try authority.md.

When to pick Think Like Them

• You're exploring whether AI persona prompts are even useful before committing
• You use ChatGPT mostly and don't need Claude Skills native auto-invocation
• Your use cases are conversational ("what would Buffett say about this")
• Budget is tight and $4.99 for one framework is real money
• You want breadth over depth — 107 personalities to experiment with freely

When to pick authority.md

• You use Claude or build AI agents and want the framework to auto-invoke
• You're using the framework for actual decisions (not curiosity)
• You want reusable structured output rather than a voice
• Quality matters more than quantity — one engineered framework beats ten shallow ones
• You want delivery as a real file you can version, share, and load into any tool
• You value craft — our frameworks read like work from a careful writer, not a prompt template

Price

Think Like Them: free.

authority.md: $4.99 per framework. Bundle any 4 for $14.99.

A buyer who wants to try one framework and doesn't need Claude Skills native format could genuinely go with Think Like Them. We'd rather lose them now than take $4.99 and disappoint them. The $4.99 number is set for people for whom the engineering, structure, and Claude Skill format is worth it.

One honest thing about Think Like Them

They've claimed an important piece of positioning territory and they're right to do so. "Think like successful entrepreneurs" is a clean, resonant pitch. If you're exploring the space, start there.

Our position is the upgrade layer: once you know persona prompts work for you, you come to us for the engineered version that goes deeper, works in Claude Skills, and treats the framework as a product rather than a starting template.

One honest thing about us

We're the new entrant. Think Like Them has more users because they've been operating longer and they're free. Our bet is that buyers who care about output quality will find us, try one flagship (Buffett, Feynman, Kobe), and realise the difference is worth paying for.

If you try us and feel it's not the level of depth we claim, reply to the delivery email and we refund within 24 hours. We'd rather give you $4.99 back than have you feel burnt.

Start here

• Browse our 430 frameworks — see the catalogue. Hit Compare on any page to see authority.md quality vs a generic prompt side-by-side without buying.
• Try Think Like Them if you're still exploring — honestly, we don't mind.
• Our install guide for Claude Skills if you're ready to go deeper.

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This post is updated when Think Like Them changes their product. Last reviewed: April 2026.