Generally asking. How does something like this get top three spot on HN? Submitted 30 mins ago and first comment 4 mins ago by a user whose only submission is this. Just curious on the mechanics.
The HN ranking algorithm seems to put a lot of weight into both velocity and flags.
A few factors that may have caught people's attention to upvote: it's about an HN company, the author is an HN regular, everything you need to know is in the title, it's written in first-person, and it's a bit unusual for someone to return as CEO.
https://felx.me/2021/08/29/improving-the-hacker-news-ranking...
https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking...
I think that ycombinator sometimes forces up their own links, but that tends to be more obviously related to them like hiring staff to various startups.
Those are inline ads, impossible to vote or comment on.