[tedmiston]

It was counterintuitive to me at first, but IIRC the idea was there were too many people talking, and they wanted to have discussion driven by creators, or people with at least some amount of clout that a friend would personally refer them for comment access. It spread in/around our local accelerator here.

There's a podcast episode maybe a year ago with Erik Torenberg (co-founder) where he discusses in more detail. He also talks about focusing the communication by splitting PH into verticals for games, books, etc. as it is now, but at the time it hadn't happened yet.

[xiaoma]

What you've described as "clout" sounds exactly the same as an old boys club. If account privileges follow a social graph, it's exclusionary to those on the margins by design.

[tedmiston]

Perhaps my word choice was off. The difference I see is that the original comment invites did not go to one common group.

For instance the person I got mine from is a mid-career technical founder in the midwest who's hard working but not rich or well known. Personally I am not yet a successful founder and have minimal connections in the Bay Area. I attributed getting it to being at the right place at the right time.