3 Lies the Tech Industry Tells About Creativity

Creativity isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s not the “soft skill” you sprinkle on top of code once the real work is done. It’s not a luxury, and it’s definitely not optional. Its required if we’re serious about building a future worth living in. Even so, the tech industry keeps telling the same tired lies about creativity. I’ve heard them in boardrooms, brainstorms, and investor pitches. I’ve heard them whispered by founders and shouted by algorithms.

So let’s name them and then let’s burn them down.

Lie #1: Creativity Happens in Isolation

We've all heard the story. The lone genius in a hoodie. The brilliant mind who disappears into a basement and emerges with the next great philosophical understanding or unicorn startup. It’s seductive, cinematic and dead wrong.

Creativity is collective. It emerges in the in between spaces. From conversations, tensions, cultural collisions, and communal dreams. The most generative work I’ve ever done happened not in solitude but in community with elders, artists, brilliant misfits and young technologists asking better questions. AI will never replace the magic that happens when diverse minds co-create. But it can amplify it if we invite it into the room to collaborate and commune with us

Lie #2: Creativity Slows Us Down

In the world of the short game, creativity is often framed as inefficient, messy and impractical. Leaders and investors alike consider creativity something to “save for later,” after the roadmap is locked and the KPIs are clear. But here’s what they forget: when you don’t make space for creativity upfront, you end up spending more on the clean up.

Creativity doesn’t slow you down. It saves you from the wrong speed entirely.

And in today's world of generative AI, we need to ask: are we accelerating toward what we truly value or just building faster versions of outdated paradigms and broken process?

Lie #3: Creativity Can Be Automated

Yes, AI can generate images, write copy, and remix data in dazzling ways. But creativity is not just about output. It’s about intention. Emotion. Meaning-making. Creativity is what happens when you bring your history, your heartbreak, your ancestors, your aliveness into the process. AI can assist. It can inspire. It cannot replace the deeply human act of making meaning out of the mess. Of turning contradiction into beauty. Of seeing what isn’t there yet and pulling it into form. That’s the real work. The sacred work. And it’s not something you automate. It’s something you honor.

So here’s my invitation to you:

Let’s stop apologizing for our imagination.Let’s stop treating creativity like it’s fluff.Let’s start building tech ecosystems where artists, poets, visionaries, and elders have seats at the table and let those voices shape the blueprint.

The future needs wild minds. And soulful design. And ideas that feel like liberation.

Let’s unlearn the lies.And start creating like the world depends on it, because it does.