I heard it directly from a YC alum who said he helped me push a post to the top. But this was several years ago. I didn't mean that YC alums would be less likely to upvote that particular article, but it does make the rankings much more unpredictable.
Another interesting thing is why my post was so heavily downvoted. Did I touch a taboo subject?
It's not taboo—this kind of repetitive meta-discussion is so common that users get tired of it and tend to flag it.