One thing that I suspect is true, but sort of hard to avoid and not really anyone's fault (although, potentially part of the "deliberate" value of HN) is that HN dwellers tend to be pre-disposed look up to YC companies, implicitly favor them, etc.
Ie, "brand halo" as it relates to ease of getting to #1 on HN is by its nature based on "brand halo in the eyes of HN dwellers", not "general tech brand halo."
I'm not saying that makes HN dwellers think that Stripe can do-no-wrong or whatnot. Just that their prior on how interesting an eng blog post on $topic will be is probably higher for a well-known YC co than it would be for a generically equivalently well-known non-YC co.
Ie, "brand halo" as it relates to ease of getting to #1 on HN is by its nature based on "brand halo in the eyes of HN dwellers", not "general tech brand halo."
I'm not saying that makes HN dwellers think that Stripe can do-no-wrong or whatnot. Just that their prior on how interesting an eng blog post on $topic will be is probably higher for a well-known YC co than it would be for a generically equivalently well-known non-YC co.