I've been reading HN for 5 or 6 years and this feels very strange to me. From the comments in here by the principles it kind of seems like Stripe is doing IH a favor. A few things that stick in my craw:

1. This seems like it would be damaging to IH's brand image (since it will now be perceived as a PR arm of Stripe, and it's all about independence)

2. Stripe's stated goal here is simply to ensure the success of IH in order to drive more people to start companies. That's not exactly compelling on it's own, and with (1), even less so.

3. IH was apparently very big on financial transparency, yet the principles are being decidedly opaque about financials in this thread.

Are these types of deals common? Does Stripe own any other media companies?

[note: these are just my thoughts. i don't think i'm entitled to any further explanation nor do i think anything nefarious is going on.]