I actually don't think the fact that HN is owned by YC makes much difference. It's not like the YC companies control what makes it to the front page any more than you or I do. And this might be the only place on the internet I actually have faith in the moderators to do right by the community.
Hacker News is how I first heard about Y Combinator in 2007. I applied in 2008 and got in. I became a founder. It changed my life. I learned a lot and got to build software for a lot of people.
I later became a partner and saw how powerful it was in society: people from all walks of life and now all over the world coming to create startups that a billion people can use.
That’s pretty cool, for signing on to a website that is basically the same product that it was when I came onto it 12 years ago.
In a lot of ways, my life is devoted trying to help you get to do what I got to do (and hopefully more, because my startup didn’t quite make it).
