Jeff Dean's Framework for Picking 5-Year Research Problems: Skim 100 Abstracts First

dawnsongtweets · x · 2026-09-21

Part 4 of the Jeff Dean conversation series: his framework for choosing a research problem worth five years.

Start broad: "It's better to skim 10 papers than to read one in detail" — even 100 abstracts, building a cloud of what might be possible to connect unconnected important ideas
Look for the right shape: if a 7-piece problem has 5 pieces becoming possible and 2 needing genuinely new but solvable ideas, that's the ideal 5-year problem
Too obvious → incremental; too unknown → maybe 20 years too early
Sweet spot: much of the path emerging, important pieces still to be invented

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