Samsung Galaxy Creator Collective, Frisco, Texas, 2024
The room held some of the biggest online creators in the world, gathered at a moment when AI had thrown the future of creativity, and their place in it, into deep uncertainty.
Will’s job was to give the room a way to see it, drawn from a career spent crossing paradigms in the dance between culture and technology. He began with the moments that formed his lifelong relationship with creativity. At eleven, he rode eight hours in his father's van to his first concert. Halfway through, the lights went down, a single spotlight found the organist, and the band tore into “Won't Get Fooled Again.” On the drive home he put his hand out the window into the wind and felt he had become a musician.
Seven years later he arrived at Berklee in Boston just as the spotlight was shifting from the stage to the screen. Napster was forming a few blocks from his dorm, and social media was being built across the river. As the music industry was collapsing, a new creator industry was being born. The ground gave way beneath him and the sky opened up, so he followed what was interesting, all the way to nearly a decade at Reddit, a company with “Remember the human” written on its walls.
That is the arc of the talk. From cave pigment to the printing press to AI, every new technology makes the ground give way and the sky open, and the creators in between decide what story gets told. AI is a new mind and an extra set of hands, and it still needs a human heart to give it direction.
He closed with a provocation. Throughout history, artists have danced with technology to show the world they were here.
How will you show history that you were here, as the tide turns again?
The room listened closely. Every creator left with a copy of Which Way Is North, and in the days that followed, the book became a totem as many of them shared posts of themselves reading it, without being asked.
Signature talks
Built for keynotes, workshops and conversations.
Creativity Unleashed Turning big anxiety into big ideas“Anxiety is creativity ready to be transmuted.”
Built on Which Way Is North. As machines get better at producing, the scarce skill is knowing where your own ideas come from. In Will’s words, generative AI “can only render, not conceive,” and this talk is about the part of the work that conceives.
Attendees leave with a practice for turning the anxiety of this moment into original ideas.
For creators, creative teams, agencies and marketing leaders.
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Human in the Loop Moral ambition to match technological ambitionThe world already knows how to accelerate tools. The open question is how to accelerate responsibility, discernment and care at the same pace.
The talk begins in 1983, with Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet officer who decided not to trust his early-warning screen. Drawing on his SPIN column and his years inside the industry, Will looks at what kind of humans, with what values, are doing the building. His answer is HEAL: Healing, Environments, Art and Language, the disciplines that repair, as counterparts to the STEM that drives growth. It is the founding idea of HEAL MVMNT, which he started with Rachelle Cady, and its test for any new technology is whether it raises the floor for everyone rather than only pushing up the ceiling.
Leaders leave with a first principle for deciding where AI belongs in their work: “Nowhere is an acceptable answer, but everywhere is not, because everywhere can’t be undone.”
For leadership summits, technology conferences, and education, health and culture audiences.
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The Architecture of Belonging Culture is humanity at scaleCommunities decide what matters long before brands arrive.
From years at Reddit listening to communities before brands spoke, Will traces how groups form, what they protect, and what earns a brand a place among them.
Teams leave with a way to find the story a community would welcome, instead of the one a brand would like to tell.
For brand, community and social teams.
Ask about this talkTarot for Storytelling Ancestral intelligence meets artificial intelligence“What we call being psychic is an aptitude for creativity.”
The conversation about AI leaves out the symbolic systems earlier cultures built for talking with forces larger than themselves. Tarot is one of the richest: 78 cards of symbol and archetype that carry the zodiac, the Kabbalah and the quest for the Grail. Will shows a room how to read the cards as structured questions, building characters, scenes and forces from them, and closes on the question the Grail knights were meant to ask: whom does your story serve?
Attendees leave with a hands-on method for getting past the blank page.
For writers’ rooms, creative, brand and innovation teams, and game and experience designers. The full course is coming soon.
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01Anxiety is creativity ready to be transmuted.
02What you see when your eyes are closed.
03Seven directions for creation.
04Courage to face the darkness, gratitude to see the light.
05Tuning into your heart for clarity, creativity and calm.
06To create is to be human.
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Background
A background spanning technology, artistry and ancient wisdom traditions. Will has advised Fortune 500 brands, cultural institutions and creative communities on aligning innovation with human values.
FormatsFor hosts
Bios and an introduction, ready to paste or read aloud. For headshots and the full-length bio, choose “Speaker kit” in the inquiry form.
Will Cady is an interventional storyteller, cultural strategist, author and co-founder of HEAL MVMNT, drawing on his experience as an early leader at Reddit to help leaders and organizations bridge art, technology, and ancient wisdom in aligning innovation with human values.
Will Cady is an interventional storyteller and cultural strategist, an author and the co-founder of HEAL MVMNT, a movement bridging the arts and sciences. An early leader at Reddit, he helped shape it into a billion-dollar platform. His book, Which Way Is North (distributed by Simon & Schuster), explores culture, creativity, and decision-making for modern leaders.
Will Cady is an interventional storyteller and cultural strategist, a multimedia artist and the co-founder of HEAL MVMNT, an initiative positioning Healing, Environments, Art, and Language as vital counterparts to STEM. An early leader at Reddit Inc., he helped grow the platform into a billion-dollar business by applying deep insights into culture and creativity. His music has reached over 3.5 million streams and earned a regional Emmy award. Cady’s book, Which Way Is North: A Creative Compass for Makers, Marketers, and Mystics (distributed by Simon & Schuster), was named a must-read by Inc. and the Next Big Idea Club for its prescience as a human handbook for creativity in a world going AI. Learn more at willcady.com
Most people spend their careers trying to choose between the person they were trained to be and the person they actually are.
Our next speaker decided not to choose.
Will Cady grew up near Walden Pond, raised by parents who read him William Blake at bedtime and brought home Zen riddles from meditation retreats. He went to Berklee, toured in bands, and then, through a single encounter with a Reddit community that saved a show he thought was lost, pivoted into building one of the most influential creative strategy operations in modern media. He built KarmaLab from the ground up and helped take Reddit to IPO.
What he didn't stop doing: leading meditations, reading tarot, and asking the questions that the professional world tends to discourage.
He's the author of Which Way Is North, a book that reframes anxiety as creativity waiting to be transmuted. He's spoken at SXSW, Cannes Lions, and Samsung's Galaxy Creator Collective, and led meditations kicking off events such as Project Healthy Minds’ World Mental Health Day Festival featuring Prince Harry and Meghan's Archewell Foundation.
His three identities (Maker, Marketer, Mystic) were once embarrassments to each other. They are now a single compass.
Please welcome Will Cady.
Inquiries
Share a few details and someone from Will’s team will be in touch soon about availability and fees. Bios and a host introduction are in the speaker kit; choose “Speaker kit” below for headshots and the full-length bio.
Questions about the Tarot for Storytelling course come here too.