Comment by nowherebeen
5 years ago
I hope this discussion doesn’t get automatically down-ranked just because it talks about Stripe in a negative light. This is an important discussion to have given how common this occurs at tech startups. It is rude and impolite for companies (not just Stripe) to behave in such a manner when hiring. It’s almost as if they forgot what basic manners are and yet they demand so much of the candidate.
We haven't downweighted this thread. Normally we downweight such threads because otherwise the front page would mostly consist of them, and mostly stacked at the top, too. Not that we exclude them altogether, but indignation routinely attracts tons of upvotes and one of moderation's jobs is to jig the system out of its failure modes.
However, we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or YC startups are involved in the story. That doesn't mean we don't moderate them at all—just less. But in this case we've not touched it, partly because of that core principle and partly because the thread is arguably more interesting reading than most of its ilk, at least in places.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
I have learned a ton about HN moderation in this thread, thanks for sharing. To your point about the thread itself, I think this is amazing content. Threads of big names showing up, debates about anonymity, debates about acquisition due diligence, hiring practices…grade A!