The Crazy One

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

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 buy

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

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 g

Ep 150 Creativity: What 10 years of making The Crazy One taught me

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 e

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

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

Ep 148 Creativity: 7 Years, 3 Buzzwords, 2 Studies, and 1 Constant Problem

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, fu

Ep 147 Leadership: Judgment, Taste, and the Five Things AI Still Can't Touch

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 a team that was built for

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

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 co

Ep 145 Creativity: Stop Asking AI to Agree With You

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

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

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

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

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

Ep 142 AI: The hidden cost of plausible, almost-right work

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

Ep 141 Design: A bigger strategy behind Apple’s Liquid Glass?

Stephen finally breaks the seal on AI — not with a prompt tutorial or workflow breakdown (he’s got a YouTube video for that), but with a deeper dive into the real convers

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

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 ex

Ep 139 Career: The Hard Truth About Creativity’s Role in Business Today (and Yesterday)

This one’s part wake-up call, part battle cry. After too many sleepless nights and too many same-old conversations, Stephen Gates climbs up on the soapbox to call out the

Ep 138 Creativity: AI Isn’t the Enemy. Complacency Is.

The AI hype train is moving fast—and it’s already crashing into our creative industry. In this episode, Stephen finally wades into the AI conversation, not to break down

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

After decades inside the system—agencies, in-house, and everything in between—Stephen Gates made the leap. No roadmap. No safety net. Just a decision to bet on himself. T

Ep 136 Career: Overcoming Fear and Insecurity: Why You Need a Plan, Not the Answers

You’re stuck. Spinning in circles. Overthinking every move. Sound familiar? In this episode, Stephen breaks down the single most powerful piece of advice he gives to crea

Ep 135 Career: The Hidden Problem of ‘Experience-ism’ in Creative Careers

When the stakes are high—new job, big idea, career leap—most of us freeze. We stall, waiting for the “right” moment, the perfect answer, the foolproof plan. But in this e

Ep 134 Career: Tough Love for Your Portfolio: Stand Out or Stay Stuck

Most portfolios don’t get rejected for lack of talent. They get rejected because they’re saying the wrong things — or nothing at all. In this episode, Stephen pulls back

Ep 133 Career: How to get laid off

Let’s be real — layoffs suck. Whether you saw it coming or it hit you out of nowhere, it’s personal, painful, and way too common in today’s industry. In this episode, Ste