your network matters

Something that SuccessfulFriend said today: It's rare that someone totally independent comes up with a really good idea. The best ideas come from people who are plugged into good networks. Even Frank McSherry (my model of someone whose idiosyncratic ideas turned out to be plausibly better than those of the mainstream academic community in his area) was a star PhD student who was at MSR with a bunch of super high-powered people.

I take this as a reminder that I should really not think of the goal of my independent time (when I quit) as coming up with good ideas, except insofar as I just want to play for the sake of playing. I should think about it as figuring out what networks I want to be part of, and how to join those networks.