What's going on here exactly?
Why does this post have an insane amount of upvotes and like 50 posts only with text like "Congratz my man!" or other people who seem to know this dude and contribute with nothing?
I think this post is doing well because it combines two things that HN readers like a lot: (1) business success stories, as long as the succeeder is someone the reader identifies with; (2) all things meta. Meta is the crack of internet forums. Oh, and a runner-up: (3) references to old things. The passage of time is what confers internet legitimacy on things. So here we have a trifecta.
There isn't massive overlap between the congratulatory commenters and the users who upvoted the submission, and among those who did both, plenty are long-established HN users. This is not what manipulation tends to look like.
Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email us and we'll look at the data.
It's not as if stories like this come up very often.