Read the engaging new book from Marc Randolph. Pre-Order today and get a special gift. Your Idea Sucks. But guess What? It Doesn’t Matter Back when I was in college, approximately 250 years ago, a friend of mine was a sculptor. She was taking a class with some famous visiting artist, the kind of guy who walks around in paint-spattered jeans and a beret, and every other day, he would come to her studio to critique her work. At the time, she was making these abstract fractals out of clay. They kind of looked like ferns. Each one was two or three feet tall, and took her weeks to finish. They were pretty good, I thought. The first time the visiting artist came to my friend’s studio, she had just started a new one. In maybe six or seven hours of work she had basically just done the stalk. “This is alright,” he said, slowly circling the work and nodding slowly. “I like where you’re headed with this.” Then he put his hand on top of the piece ...