The article is somewhat flawed. It starts with the notion that placing too much weight on "important people" is bad, because those people may not be that important afterall, if you take a broad view. That seems reasonable. The flaw however, is his suggested remedy: take a broader view to figure out who the important people actuall are.<p>What he misses is the real problem: in academia there is more of a value placed on who you are, than on what you do. People place more emphasis on institutional afiliation than they should. Rather than judge people on the merits of their work, too much weight is given to where you trained, and who trained you.<p>Nothing the author says actually addresses the core issue. In fact it seems like his issue is not being the important person. It should, however, be with how work is evaluated. Fixing that would solve the core problem.