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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

Wow, this is surprisingly good.

Indeed it is - and there doesn't seem to be a sign of "there's a sucker born every minute" - in fact several of these express the exact opposite sentiment. i.e. "Be Kind and Polite to Your Customers."

It's not there because it's not his quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_m...

If you read Barnum's works, he has a much less condescending view of his customers than that quote would suggest, which is probably why those who knew him said it was out of character.

Barnum has always been my hero. His autobiography is a great read too:

http://www.amazon.com/Life-P-Barnum-Written-Himself/dp/02520...

Henry Ford's book is pretty good, too. (My Life and Work. 1922.)

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/hnfrd10.txt

"Business" in the sense of trading with the people is largely a matter of filling the wants of the people. If you make what they need, and sell it at a price which makes possession a help and not a hardship, then you will do business as long as there is business to do. People buy what helps them just as naturally as they drink water.

Henry Ford's book is indeed truly brilliant.

It's to business as Lisp is to programming languages.

Thanks, great book, just finished reading it at your link. Made me wonder if it's still applicable today. Design the perfect product, then optimize the manufacturing process till it's dirt cheap? Definitely won't work with coding.

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