[mywittyname]

Does HN make money?

[Cthulhu_]

It's funded by a VC who has made billions off of being an early investor in e.g. dropbox, reddit, heroku, stripe, airbnb, firebase, gitlab, etc - they make a shitton, maybe not directly from HN but definitely indirectly.

[ricree]

If nothing else, it probably is/was a fairly good marketing tool for YC.

[scarface74]

HN is marketing for YC startups and also a hiring platform for YC.

[hiccuphippo]

Can I turn around this question and ask how much does it cost to run HN?

[giancarlostoro]

This I definitely want to know. I figure PG has no problem funding HN but how much does it cost to run HN? It wouldn't surprise me if it's bills are footed by someone else though, like reddit or somebody whose grateful to ycombinator.

[bluedino]

One server, probably < $100/month

[yitchelle]

Are they any full time admins/mods of HN? Probably wrong, I get the feeling those who moderates are doing it during their idle time while working at YC?

[justplay]

dang works for full-time to moderate HN as per https://blog.ycombinator.com/meet-the-people-taking-over-hac...

[i88y6]

2 mods, at least $100k/yr

[neolefty]

Does it perform an important function for YC?

[babuskov]

Well, it probably does indirectly.