How to Win Friends and Influence People
Dale Carnegie
175 people recommended it in 69 threads, 2007–2026.
2 of those were in the last year.
15 commenters pushed back on it — worth reading the threads.
What people on Hacker News said
As such, the first book I would recommend would be the classic "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie.
Finally, if you've never read "How to win Friends & Influence people", do it now! I'm 34 and for whatever reason put off reading this until last month. I wish I had read that book 10 years ago. I'll definitely be adding it to my re-read list as there is a TON of good advice for building relationships, which is arguably more important than many technical things.
Dale Carnegie provided me with a very useful set of tools that I can use to achieve the outcomes I want. For that I'm appreciative.
It has a very bad title and will probably cause immediate social ban if caught reading it at school as a teenager (also kids/teen dynamics are sometimes 100% opposite than adult dynamics, being nice and non critic as a teenager can be super risky in some social settings, it's all about not caring and being sarcastic, thank god this period ends at some point, to most of us), but nevertheless, it's the must-have book to transition from the annoying, hot tempered, emotional, entitled, short fused, sarcastic and boasting teenager I was into an adult.
This book taught me that the way you put forward your thoughts also matters. You can be right without being a dick and without screwing up your relationships with others.
In particular, the book discusses how trying to "win" an argument is a pointless path to persuasion. It really changed how I try to approach disagreements. I find myself rereading it periodically and trying to implement more and more of the suggestions.
This is why I always recommend that engineers read, "How To Win Friends And Influence People." Reading it and practicing what it says will do wonders for anyone's life and career.
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