I can relate to most of it even though I don't work in the Valley. Especially the "make friends and listen to their insights" part. We are friends with a few more experienced team and everytime we talk I learn something.
I think that if the content is relevant then there's nothing wrong with self-promotion. I looked at the comment history and he linked to tldr in 7/10 of his last comments over the last week. That doesn't seem excessively repetitive, although a disclosure might be appropriate.
for me at least, the problem isn't "too much to read", it's having a sense of the quality of an article before deciding to spend the time reading it. hence why i skim HN comments before deciding to click through.