[tomhow]

You guys!

Paul Graham (the only "thought leader" behind this website) loudly campaigns against the current U.S. administration almost every day on Twitter.

One YC-backed founder out of more than 10,000 is volunteering with DOGE.

A more thorough response to this trope can be found here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43734897

[ineedasername]

His responses to these particulars are less relevant than his career of pushing ideas that have fueled the anarcho capitalist agenda where the following seems virtuous rather than destructive of equitable law and society:

If you follow the logic of his essays—especially ones like “How to Make Wealth,” “Do Things that Don’t Scale,” or “Hackers and Painters”—you end up in a world where:

• The best people ignore rules that slow them down.

• Regulation is often just cargo-cult bureaucracy.

• Wealth is proof of virtue, or at least utility. Wealth + the rest = do what you want if you think you’re right and can get away with it

• Institutions should get out of the way of smart individuals.

• And the market, not the government, should determine value.

[tomhow]

These are interpretations that can be argued and debated (it's not appropriate for me to engage in any such debate here). But there are also major disconnects and deeply hostile disputes between key YC figures and those working with the administration.

The point is, none of it has anything to do with the way we moderate HN – which of the conflicting cues would we follow?

HN has had more front-page-visible, heavily upvoted/discussed stories about DOGE than anything else this year, along with several others relating to the administration, with the overwhelming sentiment in the articles and comments being critical.

Dang has commented at length on the matter several times:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[ineedasername]

I think dang, or the agglomeration of people who fill that role, are pretty good in respect to this, responsible stewards of the active commenting space. and I’m not proposing conspiracy theories about them not being upfront or honest in what they have said: it’s much simpler than active suppression to simply tweak the automated criteria by which articles are allowed to rise or fall.

[tptacek]

'tomhow is part of that agglomeration, fwiw.

[pera]

Is Graham still involved in HN?

While it's true that he has spoken against Trump many times, Garry Tan is very close to Thiel, Musk, and the MAGA movement in general. Didn't he recently show support for DOGE as well?

Of course, YC is more than its current CEO and hopefully this doesn't affect the moderation of this website :)

[tomhow]

> Is Graham still involved in HN?

He's on the board of YC, which appoints the CEO [1], and he still has a lot of influence. He still has dinner with dang from time to time to talk about HN [2].

> While it's true that he has spoken against Trump many times, Garry Tan is very close to Thiel, Musk, and the MAGA movement in general. Didn't he recently show support for DOGE as well?

I don't think that's a completely accurate characterisation. Garry continues to identify as a Democrat [3]. He works with people across the political spectrum to make the playing field fair for the earliest-stage startups, which is consistent with his roles as an early-stage investor and a partner (and now CEO) of YC for over a decade. Just a couple of weeks ago he hosted the Little Tech Competition Summit [4] in DC, featuring speakers from different sides and parts of government. One of the most notable speeches was by Cory Booker, who talked at length about the importance of making entrepreneurship accessible to people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, which is a cause Garry deeply supports, given his own life experience.

> Of course, YC is more than its current CEO and hopefully this doesn't affect the moderation of this website :)

Exactly :)

If we were making moderation decisions to serve individuals or agendas that supposedly our “salary depends on”, we'd tie ourselves in knots.

Our job is to keep HN a great place for intellectual curiosity.

[1] https://www.forbes.com.au/covers/innovation/y-combinator-sta...

[2] https://x.com/paulg/status/1758191829491859607

[3] https://x.com/search?q=from%3Agarrytan%20democrat&src=typed_...

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjIJOfgVgu0

[alganet]

> Our job is to keep HN a great place for intellectual curiosity.

Can you elaborate on that?

[tomhow]

Dang has written about it a lot over the years:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

It's also the core principle of HN, as stated at the beginning of the guidelines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Feel free to ask any further questions not answered in the links above!

[alganet]

Thanks!

Sure, I'll just ask directly:

Q: Do you know of any experiments of psychological or sociological nature ran on the HN platform or its participants?

Q: If you knew that such experiments take place, would you be able to confirm it publicly?

[tomhow]

This is quite the curveball, but, sure: this would never happen. The primary guiding principle of HN moderation is that community trust and goodwill is the most precious thing we have, and any action that diminishes it would destroy HN and everything we've worked for. The community scrutinizes everything we do. I can't fathom any such experiment that would be remotely beneficial to HN/YC that would be worth diminishing community trust for. Can you?

Edit: why this question, by the way?

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[tptacek]

No, but he's (AFAIK) the Chairperson of YC itself.

[nineplay]

Loudly complaining on a closed platform controlled by the unelected darling of the current adminstration is less impressive than he might hope. He has high profile blog that is silent on the current administration but highlights a article critical of "Wokeness".

[sofixa]

> Paul Graham (the only "thought leader" behind this website) loudly campaigns against the current U.S. administration almost every day on Twitter

Does he? https://x.com/paulg (maybe moderated by Musk/Twitter) only shows tweets about Gaza suffering which could be construed as criticising the current administration. On the contrary, I see multiple tweets jerking off Elon Musk (part of the current administration) and calling for compassion and personal sacrifice towards people who voted for Trump. Yes, there's "why you should vote for Kamala" tweet, but nothing critical of the current Trump regime. Let alone daily.

[tomhow]

Perhaps you're not logged in and are only seeing the highlights from recent months? I see a steady stream of posts criticising the current administration – some of his own and some reposts of others – several in just the past few days.

[alphan0n]

Can confirm, Paul is one of the few people I still pay attention to on Twitter.