Lately, whenever a startup is acquired, there have been haters that pop up on HN to say "That was actually a failure! A mere talent acquisition!" Even if the company sold for tens of millions of dollars and had millions of users. Usually, some irrelevant and dubiously sourced metrics are included, to demonstrate just how much of a "failure" the commenter thinks the founders are.

I think that's what pg is referencing.

It rarely pays to be pedantic when parody is involved. If you want to get really nit picky are you really adding anything to a jest by imposing forum rules?

Yeah, seriously, talk about Eternal September. ;)