They want to say, "" There I was, I was standing there and I had it all suddenly clear in my head. "" But in fact, if you go back and look at the historical record, it turns out that a lot of important ideas have very long incubation periods — I call this the "" slow hunch. "" We've heard a lot recently about hunch and instinct and blink-like sudden moments of clarity, but in fact, a lot of great ideas linger on, sometimes for decades, in the back of people's minds.