Paul, Thanks very much for the comment. I wasn't suggesting that these advantages are the only reason why YC invests in HN. But these benefits are important enough to justify investment, even if we ignore the significant social benefits in bringing together hackers and founders.

By the way, I'd be very curious to know if you anticipated any of these benefits when you first launched HN or if HN was just an experiment (with using Arc), and these benefits emerged over time through serendipity.