Very possible.

If an Uber executive or PR person were particularly unscrupulous (would that surprise anyone at all?), another method would be to say something really insensitive in a thread like this and start a flame war to trigger HN's ranking algorithm. Imagine how easy that would be... a somewhat carefully disguised comment with the sentiment of "depression is just weakness, suck it up!" would rightfully send this thread into a frenzy of angry commentary and downvoting.