Ignite Talks

Ignite Talks - Speedy talks around the world & teaching public speaking. Contact us to partner! Account run by @brady

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Hippos look slow. That's your first mistake.

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We cheer when the Death Star explodes. What does that say about us?

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Speed is the trap. Meta's AI celebrities flopped. A first-grader built a trivia game in minutes. The question isn't "Can we build it?" It's "Should we?"

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The Hilton cousins all inherited wealth. Anil Dash argues Paris was the only one of her generation to grow it. A surprisingly thoughtful take on celebrity and success.

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Matthew Inman accidentally learned one of the internet's oldest rules:

Weird gets attention.

His joke websites outperformed The Oatmeal, leaving him asking: "You guys would rather look at that than my comics?"

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Jane McGonigal's recovery strategy: create a secret identity and reframe your symptoms as enemies to battle.

She became Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Her headaches and brain fog became vampires and demons. What sounds playful became a powerful recovery mindset.

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Imagine you've just died.

What happens to your body in the first few hours before an open casket funeral? Stacy Holmstedt explains the fascinating biology behind blood pooling, rigor mortis, and more.

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Most people don't need a better to-do list. They need uninterrupted focus.

Greg Head breaks down the Pomodoro Technique: one task, one 25-minute timer, then a short break.

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Ted Weinstein starts by warning that publishing is brutal. Yet his clients have become New York Times bestsellers and earned Washington Post coverage.

The gap between those two realities is exactly what this talk explores.

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Your brain doesn't evaluate people in isolation. It compares. Logan Ury uses one funny dating example to explain the behavioral economics of the decoy effect.

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The "Hoodoo Trap": play a legitimate but obscure word, then volunteer a fake definition. If your opponent challenges and loses, they'll question every unusual word you play after that.

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That's such a ridiculously bad goal." Kathy Sierra explains why trying to make users love your brand misses the point entirely, and what actually creates organic word-of-mouth.

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As AI gets better at music, the human skill that matters most isn't technical – it's empathy. Connie Wong on why understanding your audience and curating experiences for them is what machines fundamentally can't do. Yet.

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No one is allowed to emote without physical support from others in Dogra culture. Amanda Nagai says we've traded that for isolated grief – and it's costing us our humanity. Are there better ways to grieve?

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Science calls it epigenetics. Your cells mark important moments like memory – and pass them down. 'The biological graffiti of living.' Does this change how we treat trauma?

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Success didn't break Lexi Novitske. Comfort did. The countries with the highest living standards report the highest rates of mental illness. Worth sitting with.

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Imperfect AI video isn't glitchy – it's accidentally trippy. The smoothness is too smooth, movements too fluid. Your brain reads it as a hallucination. Why does that happen?

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Cursor lets anyone build anything. The cost of starting a company just collapsed. What's your excuse now?

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1,000 miles of Arctic ice. Freeze-dried food. Complete isolation. Lexi Novitske didn't go to Greenland to relax — she went to feel something real.

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Thao Ha got a 10-page breakup letter at 17. Instead of moving on, she built a career studying teen love. Turns out, those early relationships aren't drama. They're data.