[seanalltogether]

> There are days when I wish that Hacker News was divorced from Y Combinator.

These days I think Y Combinator is the one thing that keeps Hacker News from falling too far off track. Reddit is a good example of a website with a purely agnostic mission goal, and it's changed to a more mainstream audience over time. Since YC uses HN as a promotional platform, the audience here will typically remain rooted to a specific culture.