How does HN significantly advantage YC's startups over others?
HN pulls techies/hackers like a magnet. In a way, it was the internet exposure to YC/HN/pg's essays that brought me into the startup world. And in a way, it was always my aspiration to go to Mountain View and talk to those people that gave me that exposure.
:)
I've seen threads where people hard-core nerded out to the following topics:
- any/all programming languages
- processors (anything on silicon, really)
- tractors
- genetics
- Chinese law
- meteorology
- geology
The list goes on...
Of course I would love to see HN data, but I believe that there is a fair amount of users that are not located anywhere near Silicon Valley.
An indicator of this would be the fact that many people I know from the EU startup scene have an HN account. Different age group, background, and profession. Of course, the sample size is not that large here.
You could imagine that HN is a direct solution to what many people consider that hardest problem startups have to solve: hiring good engineers.
That's factually incorrect. Only YC companies are allowed to post job ads at any time and as separate threads. But once per month any company can post job ads on HN, the 'who is hiring' threads on the first of the month.
Only YC companies are available on the "jobs" tab at the top of this, and every, HN page. Only YC companies can be the original post, instead of a comment. YC job postings are the only links that are not subject to comments/criticism.
The original point is that HN serves a very useful purpose for YC companies that it doesn't serve for non-YC companies.