Knowing a research field well makes it easier to assess how much other people know about it. For example, if you know ML, you sometimes notice that someone clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about (or conversely, you become impressed by the fact that they clearly do know what they’re talking about). This is helpful when deciding who to defer to.
If you are a prominent researcher, you get more access to confidential/sensitive information and the time of prestigious people. This is true regardless of whether your strategic takes are good, and generally improves your strategic takes.
One downside is that people try harder to convince you of stuff. I think that being a more prominent researcher is probably overall net positive despite this effect.
IMO, one way of getting a sense of whether someone’s strategic takes are good is to ask them whether they try hard to have strategic takes. A lot of people will openly tell you that they don’t focus on that, which makes it easier for you to avoid deferring to random half-baked strategic takes that they say without expecting anyone to take them too seriously.
A few points:
Knowing a research field well makes it easier to assess how much other people know about it. For example, if you know ML, you sometimes notice that someone clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about (or conversely, you become impressed by the fact that they clearly do know what they’re talking about). This is helpful when deciding who to defer to.
If you are a prominent researcher, you get more access to confidential/sensitive information and the time of prestigious people. This is true regardless of whether your strategic takes are good, and generally improves your strategic takes.
One downside is that people try harder to convince you of stuff. I think that being a more prominent researcher is probably overall net positive despite this effect.
IMO, one way of getting a sense of whether someone’s strategic takes are good is to ask them whether they try hard to have strategic takes. A lot of people will openly tell you that they don’t focus on that, which makes it easier for you to avoid deferring to random half-baked strategic takes that they say without expecting anyone to take them too seriously.