Comment by simonw

It's clearly access journalism - the Replit press team set this up, and the SF Standard took the opportunity.

For Replit it's a good way to raise the profile of their founder, important for this phase of the company.

The SF Standard get an interesting profile out if this because Masad is an unconventional shape of founder. The Palestinian angle is a great hook to build a story around, especially right now. The Standard's editorial brand involves presenting tech stories from their own unique angle which makes this a good fit for them.

This is their best performing story on HN in a long time, so it clearly resonated with an audience that they presumably want to reach: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=sfstandard.com