Ask HN: What's the single best piece of advice you've ever heard?

Treat people like sovereign nations

I came here to post "Don't be a dick", but glad to see that someone already has it covered.

Throughout my career, I have worked with countless people that were happy to piss off others to get stuff done, and while it might get something done in the short-term, it damages them in the long term.

It doesn't matter how junior they are right now, that junior developer you shat all over might be the senior developer that tells the MD not to hire you when you rock up for an interview after being made redundant. That contractor you tried to short-change over a delivered piece of work might be the reason why you are struggling to hire people with similar skills, or the reason why a company is keen to pursue you for not delivering. That person you harassed at work might be the reason why people keep leaving your company.

All of these scenarios has happened to me in the last five years, and I'd say that my career has been shaped by the experienced of others. I'd also say that it shapes the career of many people. Hell, you only need to see the recent issues at Uber to see a company that will fail to attract top talent, and employees that will struggle to work in any team with previous co-workers.

Want to get something done, do a little bit at a time.

- My grandma... miss you supergran.

Making mistakes is part of human nature. It's best to expect that a lot of things will go wrong, items will be lost, deadlines won't be kept, driving won't be done correctly, your boss won't know that doing $thing will cause $badthings (including annoyed employees), code will be written suboptimally, people will say stuff that hurts other people, people who hurt other people will claim they acted perfectly normally, etc.

"teach them to ride a bike one at a time"

(as parent of twins trying to be "fair" :)

"apologise early"