Your hypothesis and the one I floated aren't mutually exclusive.
My idea doesn't necessitate a conspiracy or playing with the points/ranking, which PG is rather quick to deny in his reply to me. It could have just been a plan for Sam to release blog posts over a period of time and try to get them read. I'm curious if this was a conscious effort to build something akin to http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html given the role he was being groomed for. Of course, I'm also always curious about the way this site really works on the inside.
In that comment, he claims he is simply blogging to "practice writing." From the vantage point of this announcement two days later, that sounds coy, even obtuse.
My idea doesn't necessitate a conspiracy or playing with the points/ranking, which PG is rather quick to deny in his reply to me. It could have just been a plan for Sam to release blog posts over a period of time and try to get them read. I'm curious if this was a conscious effort to build something akin to http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html given the role he was being groomed for. Of course, I'm also always curious about the way this site really works on the inside.
I do find it ironic that the piece that got the most upvotes (AI, with ~570) was one that Sam admitted he hardly worked on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7268247
In that comment, he claims he is simply blogging to "practice writing." From the vantage point of this announcement two days later, that sounds coy, even obtuse.