People aged 1-20: How did you find HN? HN isn't easily found on search engines (except for the exact keywords "hacker" and "news"). I can't imagine how a 15 year old is stumbling upon Hacker News, other than a mentor or parent referring them.
I came for the technical discussion, not for the startup scene.
Google "startups" and you tend to end up on a YC page pretty fast, and on HN soon after.
I came across HN while searching for code examples for forums (strangely enough). This was when Digg was still relevant, but someone suggested looking to alternatives for link sharing and HN came up in the conversation.
I lurked around for a long time and then finally joined.
I like HN and check it regularly. It has a much higher standard than reddit and thus supports more interesting discussion. Yes, I do often read the bloody comments before reading the story. Sometimes only the comments because they can be more interesting than the story could possibly.