The world is sick. That much is clear. And while the headlines scream and the markets shudder and the algorithms spin out stories faster than we can feel them, I can’t stop thinking about something Nick Cave said. That without artists, without the painters, the poets, the filmmakers, the beauty makers, the world would be sicker. Crueler. That art doesn’t just decorate life—it redeems it.
And I wonder… when did we stop inviting those kinds of people into the boardroom? We made business a sterile cathedral. Data-driven. Hyper-efficient. Smart. But soulless. We told ourselves that feelings were soft, that imagination was frivolous, that intuition was unscalable. And in doing so, we forgot that every brand we love, every product we obsess over, every campaign that moves us to tears or clicks, started with something wildly impractical. A feeling. A vision. A dare to be more than measurable.
We Need the Mad Ones
The best business ideas are not born from quarterly projections. They’re born in the murk somewhere between heartbreak and hope. Somewhere in the blood and muck of things, to borrow Cave’s phrase. Artists live there. They swim in it. They bleed for it. And that sensitivity? That’s not a liability. That’s the competitive edge.
We need the mad ones again. The ones who don’t know how to “stay in their lane” because they paved their own road. We need designers who treat presentations like symphonies. Writers who craft slogans like psalms. Founders who care more about why than how much. Art has always been a protest against entropy. And business, at its best, is just another form of creation.
What If Every Company Had a Chief Imagination Officer?
Imagine a world where executives aren’t just spreadsheet sorcerers but story carriers. Imagine a budget review where someone stands up and says, “Yes, the numbers check out, but where’s the soul?” That’s not naïve. That’s necessary.
Because in a world starving for meaning, companies that speak to the spirit will win. You can’t optimize your way into cultural relevance. You have to feel your way there. And for that, you need artists.
The Market Is Not Just Logic, It’s Longing
Behind every purchase is a person. A heart. A fear. A hope. No one bought the iPhone because of the specs. They bought the dream. No one wears a luxury brand for the stitching, they wear the story. Humans want to belong to something. We want to feel seen. We want to believe we’re part of a bigger picture. And artists? We specialize in the bigger picture.
So if your business strategy doesn’t include empathy, vision, contradiction or even beauty, then what exactly are you scaling?
This Isn’t About Paintings on the Wall
This isn’t about hanging a few canvases in the conference room or putting a poem in your press release. It’s about rewilding your thinking. About making space for the irrational, the intuitive, the uncomfortable truths and the ecstatic risks. It’s about knowing that while spreadsheets can show you what is happening, they will never tell you why it matters.
The Rolling Stone Culture Council is an invitation-only community for Influencers, Innovators and Creatives. Do I qualify?
There are tangible ways business leaders can bring artists into the room not just metaphorically, but structurally.
1. Appointing a Chief Imagination Officer isn’t a gimmick; it’s a strategic necessity — someone who ensures soul stays in the strategy, and story remains part of the spreadsheet.
2. Involve artists early in product development, not just for aesthetics, but to help shape meaning and emotional resonance from the start.
3. Redesign your spaces, physical and digital, with artists, not just designers, to create environments that inspire, provoke and invite belonging.
4. Commission artist-in-residence programs where creators don’t just observe but collaborate, challenging teams to see beyond metrics into the murkier, necessary questions of why it matters.
5. And finally, use storytelling as a leadership skill, not a marketing tool. Let writers and poets help leaders communicate with metaphor and meaning. In a business world optimized to the brink, voice may be the last true competitive edge.
In Praise of the Beauty Makers
Nick Cave isn’t just writing to artists. He’s warning the rest of us. When we exile the beauty makers, we don’t just lose culture. We lose conscience. We lose the people who remind us what it means to be human in a system that keeps trying to turn us into numbers. And I say this not as an observer, but as one of them.
I’ve walked into rooms where I didn’t belong, rooms full of power suits and clean margins and “serious conversations.” I’ve watched people go quiet when I said I was an artist, as if I’d just confessed to a soft hobby rather than a sharp tool. But I’ve also seen their eyes change when I showed them what art could do. When I reminded them of what they once dreamed before it got optimized out of them. I believe with everything in me that art is not the opposite of business—it’s what makes it bearable. What makes it beautiful. What makes it matter.
So here’s to the ones who create in a broken world not because it’s profitable, but because it’s necessary. And here’s to the business leaders who are wise enough to make room for them. Not on the sidelines. Not after the budget’s been approved. In the room. At the table. With a voice.
Because in a world that feels increasingly cruel, beauty is not a luxury. It’s the last defense.
And sometimes, the only one that still works.
