Daniel Pink 2026 Commencement Address: Columbus College of Art & Design (Transcript)

Editor’s Note: In this inspiring commencement address at the Columbus College of Art & Design, bestselling author Daniel Pink shares essential insights for the Class of 2026 on navigating a rapidly changing creative world. Drawing from his expertise on motivation and human behavior, he explores the profound importance of cultivating one’s unique taste as a guide for both life and career. (May 22, 2026)

TRANSCRIPT:

DANIEL PINK: All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Dr. Corn didn’t tell me this was going to be interactive. Okay, this will be fun, then.

So, for you graduates here today, today is a day that you will remember forever. So, on this momentous day, this unforgettable day, I come before you to talk about mashed potatoes. You’re welcome.

Now, to understand what I mean, we’ll have to travel back in time 50 years. I grew up right here in Columbus during the 1970s. Quick show of hands, how many people have any recollection of the 1970s out there? Oh, wow. Okay. So, here we go.

As those geriatric hands will remind you, the 1970s were a very different time. The issues our country was dealing with then are almost incomprehensible to us today. Back then, Americans faced high inflation, anxiety about jobs, gas prices clicking upward each day. There was unrest in the Middle East, a bitter conflict with Iran, and sitting in the White House was a president whom some people adored and others said was unfit for the job. As I said, wildly different.

The Mashed Potato Revelation

And about six miles east of where we gather this morning, I was eating dinner with my mother, my father, my brother, and sister around a yellow Formica table, which is where our story begins.

Now, dinnertime in my household was not a lavish affair. Hot dogs maybe, tuna casserole, sloppy joes, and on the exciting nights, meatloaf. However, I call your attention not to any particular main course, but to the most frequent side dish, mashed potatoes. These mashed potatoes. Hungry Jack instant mashed potatoes. They still exist. I bought these at Walmart. And they are truly a triumph of American ingenuity.

Here’s how to make them. Boil some water. You add these flakes. Toss in some margarine, stir, and voilà, mashed potatoes.

Now, one evening, when I was about nine years old, I found myself not at that yellow Formica table, but at the home of an elderly relative. She was serving dinner. And onto my plate, she plopped a few scoops of mashed potatoes. And right there, right then, my life changed. Forever.

These were the best mashed potatoes I had ever eaten. Smooth, fluffy, creamy, substantial, savory, rib-sticking. They were glorious.

I had to see the box from whence they came. So I slipped into the kitchen. And what I learned blew my mind. There was no box. My elderly relative had made the dish using some kind of prehistoric wizardry. She had bought potatoes. Real potatoes. She boiled them. Then she mashed them with a masher. She added butter. Real butter. And cream. Real cream. And salt. And she stirred it together. And at that moment, I discovered something about myself. I had taste.

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I don’t mean I had taste buds. That is not what I mean. I mean I had taste. Preferences. A point of view. An emerging sense that some things in the world were good, and others were less good, and this distinction mattered.

The Most Important Thing You Built Here

I tell you this story, graduates, because there’s a lesson buried in those potatoes. Over the last four years at this amazing place, you built skills in animation, in fashion, in film, in photography, graphic design, games, fine art. You’ve made lifelong friendships. You’ve completed challenging projects. You’ve landed primo internships. But what you might not realize is that thanks to all of that, you have achieved something more important. You have developed taste. Aesthetic judgment. A point of view. The sense that some things in your midst, some things that you create are good, and others are less good, and that distinction matters.

Class of 2026, I’m here with good news. That taste that you’ve developed as art and design students, that taste that you will deepen as creative professionals, will save you. It might even save us.

In an Age of Artificial Intelligence, Taste Is Your Killer App

Now, as should be clear at this point in my remarks, the qualifications for being a college commencement speaker are basically non-existent. But there is one teensy requirement. Under a little-known federal law, every commencement speech during the year 2026 is required to contain the phrase “in an age of artificial intelligence.” So let me comply.

In an age of artificial intelligence, taste will be your killer app. Your taste will set you apart and get you ahead. Your taste will make you the best at what you do, and if you really work it, your taste could make you the only at what you do.

Here’s a dirty little secret they don’t want you to know. At lesser institutions, like Ohio State or Harvard, people who haven’t studied design, who haven’t studied art, who haven’t devoted four years to imagining and prototyping and creating, they risk being left behind. Because large language models like ChatGPT and Claude are astonishing at generating options. Type a prompt, and they will deliver dozens, even hundreds of choices. But you have to decide what’s extraordinary and what’s mundane. You have to decide what will serve your client and what will shortchange them. You have to decide what will delight your audience and what will bore it, because these models have no taste, no preferences, no point of view. They have no idea what’s good or what’s bad. They don’t even care. They just predict the next letter or line of code in a sequence.

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You have taste. They don’t, which means over the long haul, they need you a lot more than you need them.

The Scarce Skill Is No Longer Execution — It’s Discernment

For most of human history, people could often imagine something remarkable, but they lacked the tools and the technical know-how to make it real.

AI turns that upside down. Now almost anyone can produce almost anything. Think about that for a moment. Now almost anyone can produce almost anything, which means the scarce skill is no longer the capacity to execute, but the ability to discern.

An example from my own industry, publishing. Large language models have made it easier for people to write books. According to new research from Cornell and the University of Minnesota, between 2022, when ChatGPT was first introduced, and 2025, the number of new book releases tripled. Sounds like a triumph of creative expression, except the average quality of published books declined. Quantity up, quality down. A world of more stuff is inevitably a world of more bad stuff, and taste is the only antidote.

Three Rules of Taste

Now taste operates by its own set of rules, three rules that you’ve likely learned implicitly here, but I want to make explicit before you go.

The first rule, creation beats consumption. People develop taste by making things, not by watching things. This is what separates art school from any other education and what will separate you from AI. Those models train on other people’s work. You train on your own work. Every project you struggled through, every critique that stung, every piece you almost gave up on, that is how taste gets built.

Of course, you should ingest a rich diet of art, design, music, film, theater, literature, even a few TikToks. But the ratio matters. The ratio matters. Spend more time actively creating and less time passively consuming, and your taste will compound.

Second rule, taste is the courage to say no. Some people will tell you that taste is just a matter of opinion, that taste is unreliable because it is subjective. Do not listen to those people. Yes, taste is subjective, but it is not arbitrary. Taste is a form of moral courage. It takes a stand, and part of taking a stand is saying no. No, that’s not good enough. No, that’s not for me.

You want to know what separates professionals from amateurs? Professionals care so deeply about what they’re building, what they’re making, that they’re willing to say no even when everyone else in the room has already nodded yes.

The third rule, if your tastes don’t change, you have no taste. Think about — give it up for having no taste. Let’s go. I’d like you to think about who you were the day you arrived here. That person no longer exists. And in case you haven’t figured it out by now, that’s been the whole point of the experience.

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And that means that four years from now, or a decade from today, or when you’re the person standing behind this lectern, you’ll be different again. This is not a warning. This is a promise.

The creators who matter over a lifetime aren’t the ones who found their groove in their 20s and defended it forever. They’re the ones who stayed restless, who kept being surprised, unsettled, challenged, who treated their own taste not as a finished product but as a lifelong practice.

Create more than you consume. Say no with gusto. Keep changing. Three rules you’ve learned here. Three rules that will serve you when you leave here.

The Bonus Rule: Wisdom from Reddit

But I’ve got a bonus. One final rule, which returns us to where I began. It’s an insight that comes from modern society’s most important repository of wisdom. Reddit. It turns out — you might have to explain to your parents a little bit about that. I don’t have time right now.

It turns out there’s a subreddit devoted to potatoes. Because of course there’s a subreddit devoted to potatoes. And within that subreddit are conversations, actually ferocious debates, about the best way to prepare certain varieties of potatoes. And within those debates have arisen an especially contentious topic. Hungry Jack instant mashed potatoes.

Many commentators are not fans. But a few folks are willing to defend this product. And one Reddit commenter offered the following counsel to those who shared his affection. It’s just seven words. Extremely wise. Seven words that double as advice for a creative life. Seven words that might be the only thing you remember from our time today. He told them, and I quote, “Forget the haters and enjoy the taters.”

The Future Belongs to You

The world you’re entering, the world that all of you graduates are entering, will generate more material than any human being could possibly absorb. Infinite images. Unlimited options. Endless noise.

Which means the future belongs to people with the taste to know what is human. What is beautiful. What is true. What is worth making. Those people are you.

Class of 2026, I’m in awe of what you’ve achieved. I’m eager to watch what you do next.

A Final Wish

And most of all, I hope with all my heart, you will spend the rest of your lives forgetting the haters and enjoying the taters. Congratulations to you all.