I liked most of the article, but the part you quoted struck me as a bit contrary to the main thrust of it. As a CS researcher, I occasionally think, what would

I liked most of the article, but the part you quoted struck me as a bit contrary to the main thrust of it. As a CS researcher, I occasionally think, what would be the #1 thing I'd do if my sole goal were to chase career success in academia? And it would be this: transition into a currently hot, well-funded applied area like cybersecurity, cancer research, or climate modeling (or big-data analytics, or robotics, or a few other such things). A lot of things just become easier if your research aligns with the current opinion among deans and funding agencies regarding which areas are important. So he did... exactly that as an alternative to chasing success? I mean it's certainly believable that he moved to those areas because he's personally interested in them, rather than just following the money. If so, he had the good fortune that his personal interests aligned closely with the current priority areas of major U.S. funding agencies. There are plenty of cases where that isn't true, so I think it's a bit dangerous to take it as the normal outcome. If your passion is something people with money are not currently interested in, the odds that everything will just work out fine if you focus on your passion are much lower. So my modified advice would be: to get tenure, follow your passion and solve problems rather than micro-optimizing citations, but first macro-optimize research area by choosing problems that the NIH, NSF, and/or DARPA are pouring money into. :-)