Quentin Hardy has written about business, finance, and technology for some of the world’s leading publications and served as head of editorial for Google Cloud. An award-winning writer, frequent television guest, and event moderator and speaker, he has a real talent for demystifying complexity.
I've known Quentin since his days as a tech editor at the New York Times, and we've worked with many of the same writers over the years. Early on, Quentin struck me as having a rare talent for Twitter, with a sly sense of humor and absurdity that made me want to get to know him better.
Quentin now runs LGTMedia, a media consulting and content creation service, and writes a Substack newsletter, Technohumanism.
This is the first in a series of interviews I'm doing with top editors, writers, and content creators. Stay tuned – I've got a lot more great interviews coming!
What kind of content work are you focused on now?
Quentin Hardy: A VC I’m working with put it well—I help companies find "story-market fit." They may have their product-market fit, but they struggle to explain themselves and what they do, whether that’s to customers, investors, or other companies. They’re so busy building that they don’t know how to communicate their value.
My focus is audience-oriented writing. Who is the audience? Where do you need to take them? Everything in writing is persuasion; whether you’re writing a shopping list, a great novel, or a corporate pitch, if it’s for someone else, you are seeking to change them in some way. My job is to help companies understand who they’re speaking to and guide them to communicate more effectively. If I can get them comfortable talking about themselves, I've done my job.
I love the phrase "story-market fit." So, what kinds of clients are you working with?
Hardy: Mostly tech—enterprise technology, consumer technology. Sometimes it's individuals. Right now, I’m working with two VCs raising funds. They need to speak clearly to investors, and even though they raise money all the time, they’re not always great at making themselves distinctive. Companies, too—they may be close to where they want to go but not quite there yet. Younger companies in a growth phase are often trying to address a new audience, as well. Even if they don’t agree with me, our conversations give them new ideas and compel them to articulate themselves better.
How do you show clients the value of your work?
Hardy: One of the VCs has a whole new angle on their fund and raised money a lot faster than they expected. A growth-stage company is using the language we worked out together. Someone else says it’s affected how they see themselves as a manager. I’ve noticed shifts in how clients communicate internally and how they think about themselves. When I first come in, they’re often uncomfortable, using too much jargon, and not feeling distinctive. I help them recognize the qualitative difference in how they express themselves. If they don't believe in their own story, others will sense it.
“Good interviewing is active empathy—it’s about understanding why someone is devoting their life to something and bringing that emotional weight forward.”
A lot of what you do involves interviewing or gathering information. Any advice on how to get good answers?
Hardy: Glad you asked! I have a guide to interviewing on my website. But in short: good interviewing is active empathy. It starts with research and imagination, and you mirror the interviewee back to them to see how they respond. It's about understanding why someone is devoting their life to something and bringing that emotional weight forward. That makes them communicate better.
That’s interesting—people often miss the empathy part. They treat interviews as mere content collection.
Hardy: Exactly. Mere collection is the kind of thing AI could plausibly do, which should tell you something about the value you’ll get from it. You’re trying to change people—to move them from one point of view to another, or at least expand their perspective. Good writers use empathy, language, and well-selected examples to achieve that. If it were easy, more people would do it.
Do you ever struggle to balance your voice with the client’s?
Hardy: As Ted Nugent once asked me, "How deep do you want to go?" I’ve often surprised editors with how quickly I can become a ventriloquist, adapting to in-house styles. Sometimes I’ve wondered if I even had my own voice left! That’s why I enjoy writing on Substack—it’s me, unfiltered. The feedback I get there is gratifying, even if it’s not all that lucrative.
You definitely have a strong voice—it comes through on your social media too.
Hardy: Social media is just me free-associating. Professional writing is different—it's about helping others communicate their message.
Do you have a definition of a good editor?
Hardy: Henry Beard from National Lampoon said it best: “A great editor is like a great safecracker—they leave no fingerprints.” A great editor helps a writer say what they want to say, only better. I’ve seen editors cut hundreds of words, and the writer thinks nothing was touched. That’s artful.
It sounds like it’s about steering the work without imposing your ego.
Hardy: Exactly. It’s a bit like management—you can manage a small team by doing a lot yourself, but to manage a larger team, you have to let them do it their way and help them improve over time.
Do you see yourself as more of a writer or an editor?
Hardy: I have enough problems with myself—other people are a real mystery! I’m told I give good cuts and comments, but I’ve always enjoyed writing more than editing or managing.
How do you handle client reviews and approval processes? You’ve been at Google, so you must have dealt with complex feedback loops.
Hardy: My company is called LGTM, which stands for "Looks Good to Me"—a Google acronym that means everyone is happy. I mirror back what people say during interviews to make sure we're aligned. At the start, I state the objectives, and at the end, I recap what we’ve covered. This minimizes unpleasant surprises.
It’s a form of Six Sigma thinking—catching issues early to avoid bigger problems later. In Six Sigma, catching flaws early is critical because fixing them later is exponentially more costly. The same applies here—if you're not aligned by the end of an interview, the project will likely have problems down the line. It’s about managing risk, not aiming for zero defects, which is impossible, but managing the downside.
What about when a client changes their mind after the interview?
Hardy: People are a mystery. Sometimes they don’t know what they want, and you just have to be patient. Respectfully ask questions, clarify objectives, and manage expectations. But yes, sometimes you just have bad days.
“AI is just a program. It’s not creative—it’s based on statistical likelihoods, not genuine intelligence.”
Are you using AI in your writing process?
Hardy: Yes, but in a specific way. I’ll write something, then prompt an AI on the same theme to see if I missed anything. AI gives me the conventional wisdom—it’s a statistical agent that uses the past to predict the future. So, it’s useful for spotting common arguments, but I’m trying to do something else. AI-type writing doesn’t surprise me, and I’m always looking to offer novel insights.
That’s exactly what I wrote on my blog today—AI can’t offer anything but conventional wisdom. We need fresh insights.
Hardy: Exactly. AI is just a program. It’s not creative—it’s based on statistical likelihoods, not genuine intelligence.
Lastly, any advice for writers working in tech or business?
Hardy: Deal with your problems upfront. Read your first draft out loud—you’ll catch mistakes faster that way. And get everyone aligned on the objectives early. People say, "Kill your darlings," but sometimes your darlings are the best parts. Be wary of your darlings, but don’t dismiss them outright.
Do you still read your drafts out loud?
Hardy: Yes. And my wife is my secret weapon—she’s a great editor. My advice? Marry a good editor!
