Being a writer on "Seinfeld" was all about one thing — the big idea. That was the currency that kept you afloat or got you tossed.

And don’t all businesses run on good ideas? Even if you’re just selling hot dogs, you need to come up with ways to make people want your hot dogs more than the other guy’s hot dogs (like, sell them with papaya juice). Sure, in some workplaces you can get pretty far by clocking in on time, complimenting the boss’s tie and never using more than your allotment of paper clips. But whatever your profession, I bet that sooner or later a good idea will be the thing that gets you noticed.

At "Seinfeld," we learned the importance of ideas pretty quickly. As soon as each season began, the first order of business was to secure time with Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld to go into their office and pitch. (Yes, their office. They were a team who worked with their desks pushed up against each other, like two concert pianists.)

Until you had a good idea that Larry and Jerry both loved and signed off on, you didn’t have squat to write. There were no assignments at "Seinfeld." It was the only sitcom I’ve ever worked on that didn’t have a room — that is, a group of writers sitting around a table littered with junk food, trying to come up with story ideas or beat one another’s jokes. In most places, the writers are assigned a script, and they go off and complete a first draft on their own. But when that first draft comes back, the bulk of the rewriting goes on in the room.

"Seinfeld" was clearly its own animal, which is a big reason I was lucky enough to be hired in the first place. Larry and Jerry specifically wanted to hire writers who had never written on a network sitcom. So the mountain of spec scripts that had been submitted by seasoned writers from Murphy Brown, Cheers and the other hit shows of the time were all nixed. The guys wanted a fresh perspective, from writers who came clean to the task. And being stand-up comics themselves, Larry and Jerry had a bent for hiring fellow stand-ups and buddies.

Pitching your ideas at "Seinfeld" was tough. Especially getting Larry David to bite. Larry had this physical tic when he was bored: he’d stretch his shoulder down from his neck and then move his arm around in a circle, looking like he was in pain. I’d pitch, Larry would listen while doing a lap with his shoulder, then at the end he’d often just shake his head and declare: “No, I don’t love that one.”