I think this kind of analysis is not worth much. Not that it was done badly (I'm not good enough to judge that). In every market you have two kinds of profitabl

I think this kind of analysis is not worth much. Not that it was done badly (I'm not good enough to judge that). In every market you have two kinds of profitable companies: The market leader who owns the huge thing. And you have niches. Both of them can be very profitable but in different ways. HN is certainly no social leader, but I would consider it a huge success. And while it may not even make money in a direct way, it's a huge part of the success of the brand YCombinator. Are these scraps? I don't think so. In fact, given the choice, I'd rather work at HN than at FB. I'd rather own shares of YC as well (in that regard YC may even be too big for what I like). And as you can see right now, I'd rather talk to people here than on FB as well.