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...
Jun 26
36 min
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...
Jun 18
34 min
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...
May 21
26 min
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 agree. I...
May 14
17 min
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 any organization: hum...
May 6
22 min
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 "output drunk" is ...
Apr 29
23 min
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 what you...
Apr 15
20 min
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 conversation: how AI is shaking the creative industry to its core. From WWDC buzz to Liquid Glass backlash, this one’s not about UI drama — it’s about system strategy. Stephen unpacks Apple’s latest moves through a deeper lens: unified design, AI readiness, and what it really takes to build future-proof experiences. Because this mom...
Jun 18, 2025
14 min
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 ow...
May 7, 2025
57 min
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 hard truth: if you’re shocked by the state of the design industry right now, you haven’t been paying attention. From AI disruption to undervalued creativity to toxic corporate cultures, this episode breaks down the brutal reality creatives are living in—and why we need to stop hoping for change and start building it ourselve...
Apr 26, 2025
17 min
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