So I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, it is very important to me to work on things that are interesting to me (anyone who knows me personally can attest I have made decisions that don't make sense under "only write papers that hit top 5") https://twitter.com/danielwgreen/status/1349067855522795520

On the other hand, look, this is a dynamic problem. If you make decisions in grad school that don't land you an academic job at all, it is much harder to do much research in the future

The reason I wrote the thread is basically that, in my experience, many people don't understand what a profile that has a decent shot getting a job at a top-100 ish school should look like. I'm just trying to give my advice on that dimension.

My objective function in grad school was I had a really strong preference for top-100 ish academia over industry. I worked at Facebook and didn't like it. I did not apply to any industry positions after grad school. It was US/intl academia, or Fed or something like that

It was really important to me that I got a position that let me continue doing research in the long run. I was willing to make sacrifices in the topics/kinds of research I did, precisely because it was so important to me to be in a position to do the research I wanted to do

So honestly I'm a bit skeptical of the advice "do what makes you happy in grad school". This is a reasonable objective function for someone who's open about what they do after grad school

But honestly the academic market is competitive enough nowadays that if you want to end up in any kind of top-100 or so academic position, if you are not just absolutely brilliant or lucky, it really helps to understand the constraint set/strategize a bit

Anyways, I didn't give any advice on "do research that makes you happy". Because that choice is for every individual to make themselves. Not my place. I just want to help people understand the constraint set so they can more efficiently trade off happiness vs the value fxn term

One common feature to everyone who did well on the job market is that we all got very lucky.

Another common feature to almost everyone is that, one way or another, we "strategized" somewhat, in picking topics, shaping our portfolio, etc. Not everyone, but in my experience most.

I am really giving this feedback because I knew a lot of people in grad school who _really loved research_, to the point that they spent very little time thinking about strategy/portfolio optimization/etc. Very hardworking, pure-hearted researchers.

And I saw many of these people end up not in academia, IMO because they spent too little time thinking about strategy. I am kind of personally annoyed at this because I think these are the kinds of people we need more of in academia.

So this advice is really directed at this kind of person. You really like research and you came to grad school because you wanted to do research your entire life. But you're kind of out-of-the-loop/slow on picking up gossip and academic politics

This is basically who I was 7 years ago when I got in grad school. I got lucky and picked these up somewhat quickly but saw many who didn't. So just trying to pass on what I think I've learned.