Dear Miss Manners:
Don't you think that nowadays, in modern life,
the old-fashioned custom of the condolence call
is out of date?
Gentle Reader:
Why is that? Is it because people don't die
anymore, or is it because the bereaved no longer
need the comfort of their friends? Miss Manners
is always interested in hearing about how life has
been improved by modern thinking or technology.
because the way people work hasn't changed much since he wrote the book in 1936, and it's points still stand. I believe "how to win friends and influence people" is actually one of the books that Ycombinator recommends to it's companies.
If you want to learn what people want, read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. [1] When a friend recommended this book, I couldn't believe he was serious. But he insisted it was good, so I read it, and he was right. It deals with the most difficult problem in human experience: how to see things from other people's point of view, instead of thinking only of yourself.
I was put off by title for a long time, before I was finally convinced that it was worth reading. How to win friends & influence people is one of the most influential books I've ever read. I try and go back and re-read it about once a year. It's just a good handbook on how to improve the quality of life for yourself and people around you.
As someone else said, people haven't changed.
I was commenting too literally about the traditional sales process he established.
#semi-off-topic rant:
Why are we still taking advice from Dale Carnegie in 2012? Our salesman culture is at its end. Value cannot be created by convincing others of its existence. True hackers cringe at any Carnegie quote, IMHO.