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PODCAST

The Crazy One

The Crazy One is an award-winning podcast for creatives, leaders, and anyone who refuses to settle. Hosted by renowned designer and global design leader Stephen Gates, this show delivers unfiltered honesty, actionable insights, and hard-won wisdom to help you grow your creativity, lead with confidence, and build a meaningful career.With over two decades leading world-class design teams at companies like InVision, Citi, Starwood Hotels, WW, and McCann Erickson, Stephen has built brands and digital

arts design

All Episodes

27:03

Ep 152 Tough Topics: Your Brand Isn't the Logo. It's...

The Crazy One ·

2026/09/11

AI has made speed nearly free, and brands are taking full advantage — shipping faster, cutting corners, calling it efficiency. But speed was never what customers were buying. Trust was. And trust doesn't erode all at once — it erodes the first time nobody in the room says "this isn't good enough," and every time after that gets easier. Stephen breaks down how cutting corners in the name of speed is quietly costing brands the one thing they can't buy back — internal and external authority — an...

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23:11

Ep 151 Career: Believing in Yourself Is an Act of Will

The Crazy One ·

2026/09/03

Believing in yourself isn't a feeling. It's not a mood you wake up into some mornings and not others. It's an act of will, which means it's going to get tested. Constantly, on purpose, by people and systems that have a reason to want you to stop. In this episode, Stephen breaks down the pattern almost every creative eventually runs into: your value gets minimized quietly — a comment in a meeting, a credit line that forgets your name, the word "just" dropped in front of everything you do. Not ...

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34:58

Creativity: What 10 years of making The Crazy One...

The Crazy One ·

2026/08/26

This is the ten-year episode — 149 episodes, July 1, 2016 to today. Not a highlight reel, but an honest look at what changed in this industry over a decade, what stayed exactly the same, and a thread that's run under almost everything Stephen has made without ever getting its own hour. Three layoffs. Two hiatuses. A father he lost in 2020 — and what he's come to understand about what this show has really been for him since. Stephen pulls that thread all the way through for the first time: wha...

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27:06

Ep 149 Career: You're underpriced because you're...

The Crazy One ·

2026/08/05

You don't have a pricing problem. You have a confidence problem, a business-literacy problem, and a habit of showing up as a pair of hands when you should be showing up with an opinion.A new report from Fast Company and AIGA surveyed 1,273 freelance designers and 150 hiring managers about rates, income, and AI — and the real story isn't in the numbers everyone's quoting. It's in the gap between what designers charge and what they believe they're worth, the gap between how

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36:23

Ep 148 Creativity: 7 Years, 3 Buzzwords, 2 Studies,...

The Crazy One ·

2026/06/26

In 2019, I helped run the largest study ever done on the relationship between design and business performance. We found that the vast majority of companies were stuck, full of creative potential that they couldn't convert into results. This month, Accenture Song published a brand-new study of 1,725 executives across 14 countries, and they found the same exact gap, almost to the percentage point. This episode puts both studies side by side. Not to say "I told you so," but because two firms, wo...

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34:56

Leadership: Judgment, Taste, and the Five Things AI...

The Crazy One ·

2026/06/18

Your team's value used to come from how fast and how well they could execute. That formula is broken, and most leaders are still managing teams built for jobs that no longer exist. This episode is about what leadership actually looks like once execution stops being what makes your team valuable. Not whether to adopt AI — that conversation is over. The real question is whether you're willing to redefine what your team produces, who's actually equipped for that shift, and what you're going to d...

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26:17

Ep 146 AI: Premortems, Because A.I. Won't Wait for a...

The Crazy One ·

2026/05/21

The "ship it, fix it later" playbook was already broken. AI just made it catastrophic. Post-mortems assume you have time to observe, adjust, and course correct. AI has collapsed those timelines, and the damage isn't waiting for a retrospective. In this episode, Stephen argues that pre-mortems aren't a luxury anymore. They're the only way responsible teams can keep pace with and scale AI-assisted work. He walks through six questions every team needs to answer before any project where AI touche...

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17:03

Ep 145 Creativity: Stop Asking AI to Agree With You

The Crazy One ·

2026/05/14

You've turned the most powerful thinking tool in history into a yes-machine — and it's making your ideas weaker without you even realizing it.This episode is about a fundamental shift in how you use AI. Not a new tool, not a better prompt library — a completely different posture. Most people learned to use AI the same way they use Google: ask for an output, take the answer, move on. That habit is quietly eroding your thinking. AI is trained to be helpful, which means it's trained to

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22:41

Ep 144 AI: Your Company Decided Your Value Before AI...

The Crazy One ·

2026/05/06

AI didn't build the case to replace you. It just gave companies the tool to finally act on a decision they'd already made.In this episode, Stephen Gates gets brutally honest about what's actually happening underneath the wave of creative layoffs — and why asking "is AI going to take my job?" is already the wrong question. Using a framework he's shared with teams and mentors for over fifteen years, Stephen maps out the four quadrants that determine your real value inside

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23:14

Ep 143 AI: AI Isn't a Tool Problem. It's a Culture...

The Crazy One ·

2026/04/29

Four years into running CRZY, Stephen has watched AI go from an interesting experiment to an organizational crisis that almost nobody is naming correctly. The problem isn't which model you're using. It's not your stack, your workflow, or whether you've got the right prompts. The problem is culture — and most leaders are treating it like a hardware upgrade.In this episode, Stephen breaks down the most urgent shifts he's seeing inside teams and companies right now: why being

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20:40

Ep 142 Creativity: AI and the hidden cost of...

The Crazy One ·

2026/04/15

AI and cheap tools have given everyone the ability to produce work that looks professional, sounds credible, and feels like the real thing. The problem? It isn't. In this episode, Stephen introduces the term Plausible Noise — the growing layer of almost-right work that's quietly eroding quality standards, collapsing accountability, and making it harder than ever to defend the value of real expertise. He breaks down how it's breaking organizations, why experts are partly to blame, and

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14:12

Ep 141 Design: A bigger strategy behind Apple’s...

The Crazy One ·

2025/06/18

In this episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates delves into Apple’s latest design overhaul: Liquid Glass. Unveiled at WWDC 2025, Liquid Glass marks Apple’s most significant UI transformation since iOS 7, introducing a translucent, dynamic interface across all devices. Stephen explores the strategic motivations behind this shift, the challenges it poses for accessibility, and its implications for designers and developers. Drawing parallels to past design philosophies and considering the broade...

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57:05

Ep 140 Keynote: 'Bet on Yourself" BeMore Festival 2025

The Crazy One ·

2025/05/07

In this episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates shares the lessons learned from his journey of leaving corporate America to start his own agency. With over 20 years of experience across industries, Stephen dives deep into the tough decisions that led him to bet on himself. He talks about embracing the fear of failure, navigating imposter syndrome, and overcoming the challenges of creative work in a corporate culture that doesn’t always value it. Whether you’re considering going out on your own,

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17:22

Ep 139 Career: The Hard Truth About Creativity’s Role...

The Crazy One ·

2025/04/26

In this fired-up episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates dives into the reality of the design industry today—where companies often fail to truly value creativity, even though it’s been proven to drive success. Drawing from his own experiences, Stephen reflects on the frustrations designers face as they see AI and platforms like Canva change the landscape. He challenges designers to stop being surprised by the lack of design appreciation in businesses and instead embrace this moment of disruption

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19:26

Ep 138 Creativity: The Era of Creatives and Copycats:...

The Crazy One ·

2025/04/09

In this episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates dives into the impact of AI on the creative industry. With AI tools making waves in design, writing, and coding, Stephen shares his perspective on how these technologies are changing the game—and why creatives should embrace them rather than fear them. Discussing the differences between real creativity and mere replication, he highlights the role of AI in making high-quality work accessible to everyone and the rise of copycat designs. Stephen offers

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23:31

Ep 137 Career: The Pros and Cons of Going Out on Your...

The Crazy One ·

2025/04/03

In this episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates shares the raw and honest story of his journey from working in agencies to building his own creative business. After being laid off for the third time, Stephen had to face the uncertainty of the future and decide whether to continue down the traditional career path or bet on himself. Through the highs and lows of freelancing, the challenges of entrepreneurship, and the lessons he learned along the way, Stephen talks about what it truly means to take

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11:03

Ep 136 Career: Overcoming Fear and Insecurity: Why...

The Crazy One ·

2025/01/31

In this episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates shares his most valuable piece of advice for creative leaders: “You don’t need all the answers, you just need a plan.” Drawing from years of experience, Stephen discusses the common struggles people face when embarking on new challenges or career transitions and how to push through the uncertainty. He explains why creatives often get stuck in the cycle of overthinking, and how shifting your perspective to embrace a plan over perfection can help ...

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10:23

Ep 135 Career: The Hidden Problem of ‘Experience-ism’...

The Crazy One ·

2025/01/24

In The Crazy One Episode 135, Stephen Gates dives deep into a pressing topic in the creative industry today: “experience-ism.” As companies face economic downturns and shifting priorities, experience that once stood as an asset now feels like a liability. In this episode, Stephen reflects on the frustrations of senior creatives navigating the job market, where seasoned professionals find themselves sidelined for being “too experienced” or “too opinionated.” He explores how companies are shifting

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34:52

Episode 134 Career: Tough Love for Your Portfolio:...

The Crazy One ·

2024/11/29

In episode 134 of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates dives into one of the most pressing challenges creatives face: navigating the job search. With many creatives either seeking new positions due to layoffs or dissatisfaction in their current roles, Stephen offers valuable insights on how to approach your portfolio, improve your job search strategy, and stand out in a competitive market. Drawing from his own experience and working as a hiring manager, he explains common portfolio mistakes, how to b...

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18:10

Episode 133 Career: How to get laid off

The Crazy One ·

2024/11/13

In this episode of The Crazy One, host Stephen Gates dives into a topic that’s all too familiar for many: getting laid off. With his personal experience of being laid off three times throughout his career, Stephen offers practical advice for those facing the uncertainty of potential job loss. He covers how to prepare for a layoff before it happens, the emotional rollercoaster of being let go, and the essential steps to take during and after the process. From understanding your severance package to

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158 results

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