Author here. Ever since I knew of Hacker News, I've always been interested in the massive leverage it provide to both startups and individuals.
Choose the correct title and your startup can be projected to thousands. Write a thoughtful comment and you can make 20 sales. Ask the right question and you can end up with a Silicon Valley job (that actually happened)!
I came across Simple Analytics [1] a privacy-focused startup which pulls in huge traffic from HN. Fortunately all their traffic was all "/open" so I could compare traffic spikes with their founders [2] Hacker News activity and understand what really does works on Hacker News.