Herbert Lui

“There are only two ways to make money in business: One is to bundle; the other is to unbundle.” — Jim Barksdale

I’ve professionally asked questions for years. Clients pay me thousands of dollars to ask the questions I do. I’ve also asked recording artists who I do interviews with. I got good enough that A$AP Ferg told me our interview was the best one he’d ever done. Here’s are some principles for asking good questions.

When I look at the money I make from writing, I can hardly believe my eyes. So I don’t. I turn on Thug Motivation 101, and listen to Jeezy say the same thing he said when I was in high school, “You gotta believe…”

Whatever you’re selling, you’re also creating something valuable that you haven’t sold yet. It probably looks like waste. Process it and sell it!

For writers, entrepreneurs, or anyone who wants lead thinking, I’m going to show you my story-driven approach to pitching.

In Praise of Rescuing Lost Stories Whenever I come across a broken link, I gasp. I pull up Archive.org, the vast backup of broken links, and I indulge the impulse. I noticed this first in 2012, when I tried finding full footage of the Watch the Throne documentary. I caught wind that there was a…

When the pandemic first started, some of us drew inspiration from how Shakespeare wrote during the plague, or how Isaac Newton invented calculus while in isolation. The idea was aspirational—perhaps we, too, could make great things during the pandemic. It was a relief. While I didn’t aim to be Shakespeare, I did need to write…

There’s a time and place for shortcuts, but here’s a call to actually doing the work. It’s the opposite of a shortcut; it’s a longcut.