My favorite bit so far: "After the first year or two, you'll have some idea of what subfield you are going to be working in. At this point---or even earlier---it's important to get plugged into the Secret Paper Passing Network. This informal organization is where all the action in AI really is. Trend-setting work eventually turns into published papers---but not until at least a year after the cool people know all about it. Which means that the cool people have a year's head start on working with new ideas."