Totally depends on the ambition; perhaps it was never PG’s ambition to completely understand and “own” the target audience of HN, but rather wanted to delegate

Totally depends on the ambition; perhaps it was never PG’s ambition to completely understand and “own” the target audience of HN, but rather wanted to delegate that responsibility, to focus on YC’s core users instead. It may be precisely because of a tendency to understand and improve, that it is a mental sinkhole.