[raganwald]

The analogy with Hacker News was not meant as a criticism. I personally think that Paul's interest in investing in startups--which may be more about passion than pecuniarum for all I know--actually makes Hacker News a better forum than if it were moderated (or meta-moderated) by someone with an interest in page views or the size of the community, to give two examples.

I had expected people to follow that reasoning and reply "Actually, HN is better because Paul Graham is more interested in nurturing startups than in selling advertising." I was mistaken and have learned that sometimes a simple, direct argument is going to get the job done while an indirect argument may just come across as noise.

Mea Culpa.