6 ms·

Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?

48 points by antonpuz 6y ago

I know HN is owned by Y-Combinator. But, as a popular and homogeneous platform there must be many possible ways to earn from it. So what is HN's business model and how its value is measured?

feifan 6y ago
I'm not sure there is a business model or a quantitative framework for measuring its value. I imagine it's just a cool thing they built and put it out there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- smitty1e 6y ago
  1. Do cool stuff. 2. ??? 3. Profit! More seriously, I thought HN was a showcase for arc.
thenanyu 6y ago
HN’s business model is to put the YC brand in front of a technical, entrepreneurial, audience.
k00b 6y ago
If it’s anything it’s content marketing for YC. I suspect it’s origin is that it was just something pg wanted.
- dang 6y ago
  That's true actually. pg had been interested in social news sites for years (Slashdot because people would post his essays there, but especially Delicious). He gave the Reddit founders the idea for Reddit, and for a while was their number one user. But once Reddit started taking off it turned in a direction that he wasn't as interested in and they stopped implementing his feature requests, so he built his own. That was one of the motivations for HN. The others, that I'm aware of, were helping to grow the nascent YC community, and writing a significant application in Arc.
hieu 6y ago
I don't think this was how it got started but you can think of HN as content marketing / recruiting channels for YC.
lefstathiou 6y ago
My humble perspective, HN serves several purposes: 1) Top of the funnel lead gen for emerging companies (for YC to invest in). 2) Persistent advertising for the YC brand. You can’t use HN without associating it with Y Combinator and by being useful it brings in millions of views to the brand at relatively little cost 3) A proprietary way to learn more about the founders they invest in. I’ve read a users HN profile (what they like dislike, quality of comments) is an important source of unadulterated intel. As for value, I wouldn’t know how to calculate it but given the size of their “classes” and speed of rise, it clearly serves as a very effective in bound funnel for investing in quality startups. Definitely in the millions, not sure if billions unless it directly contributed to their biggest and best investments. EDIT: I’ve left out other ancillary benefits like a distribution platform for YC companies looking to hire and such. Lastly, value is relative. The value of HN to YC (or to perhaps other VCs) is larger than the value to say me who couldn’t make as much use of the benefits enumerated above. There are a lot of intangibles here.
- narrationbox 6y ago
  What is YC's privacy policy on 3?
  - dang 6y ago
    I don't know of any privacy policy on it but HN doesn't really overlap with YC applications. pg used to say that he'd sometimes recognize a username as being a smart commenter on HN, and maybe that would be more likely to get them an interview (I suspect as much because he wanted to meet the commenter as because he thought they might be worth funding). But I don't think it was ever a big deal, and I doubt happens at all anymore. "An important source of unadulterated intel" is definitely not true. Sometimes I notice someone doing interesting work on HN and get in touch with them and try to convince them to apply to YC. I'd like to do more of that.
    - lefstathiou 6y ago
      Years ago I recall listing your hacker news user name was part of the YC application process (I have not applied in some time). Hard to believe that it wasn’t used as a screening mechanism at some point in the application process. Humbly defer to you of course.
SigmundA 6y ago
For some reason this post reminded me of a new rule by by Bill Maher: Now, I know what you're thinking: "But, Bill, the profit motive is what sustains capitalism." Yes, and our sex drive is what sustains the human species, but we don't try to fuck everything.
- cercatrova 6y ago
  I beg to differ on that last point, if history serves well as an example.
krapp 6y ago
My two cents: HN creates and maintains the impression of YCombinator being a cutting edge nexus for hacker and startup culture, the virtual water cooler you want to be seen next to saying something clever when important people walk by. It also provides advertising for YC startups via related threads and the who's hiring pages.
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
  It's effective too. I am unaware of any other VC groups attempting to brand themselves in this way.
simplyinfinity 6y ago
Y-Combinator maintains this platform ( in my own opinion ) for two reasons 1) it's a neat place for likeminded people to share and discuss interesting topics 2) this is a byproduct of 1. by gaining popularity from 1. they gain more exposure to a lot of smart people, which turns out great when they post job ads, or new companies reveals, as well as a lot of people apply to y-combinator, which in turn means they get to be very picky in who they invest. But HN doesn't have a business model per se. same with Reddit communities.
- antonpuz 6y ago
  (2) is actually really smart
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
Not mentioned yet, but occasionally you'll see a job posting (no more than one or two) on the front page. They blend in well; it could be possible to miss them now and again.
Apreche 6y ago
It may not be consciously built towards this purpose, but HN serves primarily to spread the silicon valley, get-rich quick, startup business, and entrepreneur culture among software engineers and other technology experts. YC and other VCs can't continue to exist if people don't continue to believe in the mythology of silicon valley. Who the hell will work ridiculous hours and gamble with their livelihood to make some worthless app? All in exchange for equity worth less than lottery tickets.
- ykevinator 6y ago
  This is right, they trade youth for cash, a few will make money the rest lose their twenties
- dang 6y ago
  This is ironic, not only because you posted it to HN, but because it's an absolutely typical HN comment. See the sibling reply to this one for another. Somehow people post these things without realizing that cynicism about VC, Silicon Valley, and startups became the conventional position on HN many years ago, and that far from a contrarian view it's a platitude.
znpy 6y ago
Mostly to inflate the startup echo chamber so that y combinator can cherry pick companies to invest into, I guess.
antonpuz 6y ago
Interestingly no one suggested YC could actively contacts inventors which just share their work/research with the world and suggest mentoring or drive toward business. It could be seen as a super early lead generator. How common/possible in this scenario?
- dang 6y ago
  We do that sometimes and I'd like to do more. I think there's huge unrealized potential in this community.
dang 6y ago
I've written about this a few times. If you read these answers and still have a question that remains unaddressed, I'd love to know what it is. (My plan is eventually to compile all these repeated answers to HN questions into some kind of super-FAQ and then retire from comment writing and just link to it, forever into a bright future.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23285793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23285793 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20yc%20business%20interests&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- pvg 6y ago
  You'll still have to comment when you come up with snee.
raltok 6y ago
Hi everyone, We’re launching a live course on software startup formation with Shawn Kung, Venture Partner at AV8 Ventures, a VC firm based in Silicon Valley. He’s also an angel investor at Y Combinator Demo Day as well as a Stanford Lecturer. The course includes: - 6 weekly live lectures with Shawn and all the other students (2h each) - Guest speakers (founders & investors from Shawn’s network) - 1-1 office hours - Unlimited Q&A on the course private Slack channel - Startup mini project where students will form teams and pitch a business idea to Shawn - Lifetime access to Shawn’s Slack channel & private LinkedIn group for alumni We are 75% full. Class is capped at 50 students. The live course will kick off on July 23. Schedule for the lectures is 5-7pm PT. Link: https://flatwyse.com/venture-startup-formation https://flatwyse.com/venture-startup-formation

48 points by antonpuz 6y ago

I know HN is owned by Y-Combinator. But, as a popular and homogeneous platform there must be many possible ways to earn from it. So what is HN's business model and how its value is measured?

feifan 6y ago

I'm not sure there is a business model or a quantitative framework for measuring its value. I imagine it's just a cool thing they built and put it out there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

smitty1e 6y ago
1. Do cool stuff. 2. ??? 3. Profit! More seriously, I thought HN was a showcase for arc.

thenanyu 6y ago

HN’s business model is to put the YC brand in front of a technical, entrepreneurial, audience.

k00b 6y ago

If it’s anything it’s content marketing for YC. I suspect it’s origin is that it was just something pg wanted.

dang 6y ago
That's true actually. pg had been interested in social news sites for years (Slashdot because people would post his essays there, but especially Delicious). He gave the Reddit founders the idea for Reddit, and for a while was their number one user. But once Reddit started taking off it turned in a direction that he wasn't as interested in and they stopped implementing his feature requests, so he built his own. That was one of the motivations for HN. The others, that I'm aware of, were helping to grow the nascent YC community, and writing a significant application in Arc.

hieu 6y ago

I don't think this was how it got started but you can think of HN as content marketing / recruiting channels for YC.

lefstathiou 6y ago

My humble perspective, HN serves several purposes: 1) Top of the funnel lead gen for emerging companies (for YC to invest in). 2) Persistent advertising for the YC brand. You can’t use HN without associating it with Y Combinator and by being useful it brings in millions of views to the brand at relatively little cost 3) A proprietary way to learn more about the founders they invest in. I’ve read a users HN profile (what they like dislike, quality of comments) is an important source of unadulterated intel. As for value, I wouldn’t know how to calculate it but given the size of their “classes” and speed of rise, it clearly serves as a very effective in bound funnel for investing in quality startups. Definitely in the millions, not sure if billions unless it directly contributed to their biggest and best investments. EDIT: I’ve left out other ancillary benefits like a distribution platform for YC companies looking to hire and such. Lastly, value is relative. The value of HN to YC (or to perhaps other VCs) is larger than the value to say me who couldn’t make as much use of the benefits enumerated above. There are a lot of intangibles here.

narrationbox 6y ago
What is YC's privacy policy on 3?
- dang 6y ago
  I don't know of any privacy policy on it but HN doesn't really overlap with YC applications. pg used to say that he'd sometimes recognize a username as being a smart commenter on HN, and maybe that would be more likely to get them an interview (I suspect as much because he wanted to meet the commenter as because he thought they might be worth funding). But I don't think it was ever a big deal, and I doubt happens at all anymore. "An important source of unadulterated intel" is definitely not true. Sometimes I notice someone doing interesting work on HN and get in touch with them and try to convince them to apply to YC. I'd like to do more of that.
  - lefstathiou 6y ago
    Years ago I recall listing your hacker news user name was part of the YC application process (I have not applied in some time). Hard to believe that it wasn’t used as a screening mechanism at some point in the application process. Humbly defer to you of course.

SigmundA 6y ago

For some reason this post reminded me of a new rule by by Bill Maher: Now, I know what you're thinking: "But, Bill, the profit motive is what sustains capitalism." Yes, and our sex drive is what sustains the human species, but we don't try to fuck everything.

cercatrova 6y ago
I beg to differ on that last point, if history serves well as an example.

krapp 6y ago

My two cents: HN creates and maintains the impression of YCombinator being a cutting edge nexus for hacker and startup culture, the virtual water cooler you want to be seen next to saying something clever when important people walk by. It also provides advertising for YC startups via related threads and the who's hiring pages.

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
It's effective too. I am unaware of any other VC groups attempting to brand themselves in this way.

simplyinfinity 6y ago

Y-Combinator maintains this platform ( in my own opinion ) for two reasons 1) it's a neat place for likeminded people to share and discuss interesting topics 2) this is a byproduct of 1. by gaining popularity from 1. they gain more exposure to a lot of smart people, which turns out great when they post job ads, or new companies reveals, as well as a lot of people apply to y-combinator, which in turn means they get to be very picky in who they invest. But HN doesn't have a business model per se. same with Reddit communities.

antonpuz 6y ago
(2) is actually really smart

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

Not mentioned yet, but occasionally you'll see a job posting (no more than one or two) on the front page. They blend in well; it could be possible to miss them now and again.

Apreche 6y ago

It may not be consciously built towards this purpose, but HN serves primarily to spread the silicon valley, get-rich quick, startup business, and entrepreneur culture among software engineers and other technology experts. YC and other VCs can't continue to exist if people don't continue to believe in the mythology of silicon valley. Who the hell will work ridiculous hours and gamble with their livelihood to make some worthless app? All in exchange for equity worth less than lottery tickets.

ykevinator 6y ago
This is right, they trade youth for cash, a few will make money the rest lose their twenties
dang 6y ago
This is ironic, not only because you posted it to HN, but because it's an absolutely typical HN comment. See the sibling reply to this one for another. Somehow people post these things without realizing that cynicism about VC, Silicon Valley, and startups became the conventional position on HN many years ago, and that far from a contrarian view it's a platitude.

znpy 6y ago

Mostly to inflate the startup echo chamber so that y combinator can cherry pick companies to invest into, I guess.

antonpuz 6y ago

Interestingly no one suggested YC could actively contacts inventors which just share their work/research with the world and suggest mentoring or drive toward business. It could be seen as a super early lead generator. How common/possible in this scenario?

dang 6y ago
We do that sometimes and I'd like to do more. I think there's huge unrealized potential in this community.

dang 6y ago

I've written about this a few times. If you read these answers and still have a question that remains unaddressed, I'd love to know what it is. (My plan is eventually to compile all these repeated answers to HN questions into some kind of super-FAQ and then retire from comment writing and just link to it, forever into a bright future.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23285793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23285793 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20yc%20business%20interests&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

pvg 6y ago
You'll still have to comment when you come up with snee.

raltok 6y ago

Hi everyone, We’re launching a live course on software startup formation with Shawn Kung, Venture Partner at AV8 Ventures, a VC firm based in Silicon Valley. He’s also an angel investor at Y Combinator Demo Day as well as a Stanford Lecturer. The course includes: - 6 weekly live lectures with Shawn and all the other students (2h each) - Guest speakers (founders & investors from Shawn’s network) - 1-1 office hours - Unlimited Q&A on the course private Slack channel - Startup mini project where students will form teams and pitch a business idea to Shawn - Lifetime access to Shawn’s Slack channel & private LinkedIn group for alumni We are 75% full. Class is capped at 50 students. The live course will kick off on July 23. Schedule for the lectures is 5-7pm PT. Link: https://flatwyse.com/venture-startup-formation https://flatwyse.com/venture-startup-formation