[dewey]

Or the simpler explanation (which is probably closer to the truth): Stripe is a very popular company on HN as many people use them, their founders sometimes comment here and if they share their opinion on something people pay attention and upvote it.

[nullstyle]

Or the even simpler explanation, that whenever Stripe posts a blog post, they have nine or 10 employees waiting to upvote it the moment it goes live.

[BiteCode_dev]

Doesn't explain how you get to the frontpage with less than 20 upvotes magically.

[steveklabnik]

You only need about 4 upvotes in the first 20 minutes or so to get on the front page. It's the same for every story.