83 Fun Facts About Hacker News

What kind of organisation runs Hacker News?

Hacker News is run by Y Combinator, the startup accelerator Paul Graham co-founded in 2005, which also invests in the companies it admits.

In which year was Hacker News created?

Paul Graham built it that February as a test of his Arc language; it was first called Startup News.

Hacker News was written in which programming language?

Arc is a Lisp dialect co-developed by Paul Graham and Robert Morris.

How many karma points does a Hacker News user need before they can downvote?

The downvote arrow on comments appears only once an account reaches 501 karma, which keeps brand-new accounts from burying replies.

How many karma points are needed to flag a comment on Hacker News?

An account needs 30 karma before the flag link appears on comments; karma is the net of upvotes minus downvotes on your posts.

Which Hacker News moderator posts under the username 'dang'?

Daniel Gackle posts as dang, a contraction of Dan Gackle, and took over day-to-day Hacker News moderation from Paul Graham.

Which co-moderator worked with dang until 2019 under the username 'sctb'?

Scott Bell, posting as sctb, co-moderated Hacker News with Daniel Gackle before stepping down in 2019.

What did Paul Graham say Hacker News hopes to avoid?

Paul Graham said he hoped Hacker News could avoid Eternal September, the 1993 Usenet flood of newcomers that degraded its discussions.

Which community did Hacker News set out to recreate?

Paul Graham built Hacker News to recreate the feel of early Reddit, which had been in Y Combinator's first batch in 2005.

What practice hides a Hacker News user's new posts from everyone except that user?

Hacker News uses stealth banning, also called shadowbanning: a banned account's posts are hidden from every other reader without any notice to the poster.

In what month and year was Y Combinator launched?

Y Combinator launched in March 2005 in Cambridge, Massachusetts; its first Summer Founders Program that year funded eight startups, including Reddit.

Who were the four founders of Y Combinator?

Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell founded Y Combinator in 2005; Graham and Morris had earlier built an online-store startup together.

Y Combinator originally ran parallel programs in Mountain View and which other city?

The Boston program ran summers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with winters in Mountain View, until Y Combinator closed the Cambridge office in January 2009.

In which year did Y Combinator relocate to San Francisco?

Y Combinator moved its headquarters from Mountain View to San Francisco in 2019; the Summer 2020 batch was then run entirely remotely because of the pandemic.

Which firm led a $2M investment in Y Combinator in 2009?

Sequoia Capital led a $2 million investment in Y Combinator in 2009 so it could fund more startups per batch, then led an $8.25 million round in 2010.

In 2011, Yuri Milner and SV Angel offered every YC company how much in convertible notes?

The 2011 Start Fund from Yuri Milner and SV Angel offered every Y Combinator startup a $150,000 uncapped convertible note; the amount was later cut to $80,000.

Which nonprofit did YC use to test funding nonprofits, before opening the door in 2013?

Watsi, a crowdfunding charity for medical care, was the first nonprofit Y Combinator funded, in its Winter 2013 batch, before YC opened applications to nonprofits later that year.

Sam Altman was in YC's very first batch as a founder of which company?

Loopt, Sam Altman's location-sharing app, was one of the eight startups in Y Combinator's first batch, the Summer Founders Program of 2005.

In which year did Paul Graham appoint Sam Altman president of Y Combinator?

Paul Graham stepped back and named Sam Altman president of Y Combinator in February 2014; Altman had been a part-time partner since 2011.

Under Altman, YC's standard deal became $150,000 for what stake?

The 7% figure survived the 2022 revamp.

Which investor was a part-time partner at YC from 2015 to 2017?

Peter Thiel joined Y Combinator as a part-time partner in March 2015 and had left its partner list by November 2017.

Who succeeded Sam Altman as YC president in 2019?

Geoff Ralston became president of Y Combinator in March 2019 when Sam Altman stepped down; Ralston had helped build RocketMail, which Yahoo bought in 1997 and turned into Yahoo Mail.

What went wrong with Startup School applications in 2018?

A 2018 software bug emailed acceptances to all 15,000 Startup School applicants instead of the 3,000 planned; after the outcry, YC accepted everyone anyway.

YC's revised January 2022 standard deal totalled how much?

$125,000 for 7% plus $375,000 on an uncapped SAFE with an MFN clause.

By how much did YC cut its summer 2022 intake?

Y Combinator cut its Summer 2022 batch by about 40%, from 414 companies in Winter 2022 to roughly 250, citing the market downturn.

Which former Baidu COO was named head of YC China in 2018?

Qi Lu, who had led Microsoft's Bing division and served as Baidu's president and COO, became CEO of YC China in August 2018; YC wound the unit down in late 2019.

Who wrote the SAFE, YC's Simple Agreement for Future Equity?

Carolynn Levy, a lawyer and Y Combinator partner, drafted the SAFE, which YC released in late 2013 as a simpler alternative to convertible notes.

In 2018 YC replaced the original SAFE with which version?

The post-money SAFE, introduced in 2018, fixes the investor's ownership percentage at signing, instead of leaving it to be diluted by later SAFEs at conversion.

Which Posterous co-founder and Palantir's tenth employee became YC's CEO in 2023?

Garry Tan became president and CEO of Y Combinator in January 2023; he co-founded Posterous, was Palantir's tenth employee, and started Initialized Capital, an early Coinbase investor.

Garry Tan's blogging startup Posterous was bought by which company in 2012?

Twitter bought Posterous in March 2012 and shut the service down in April 2013; Garry Tan then co-founded Posthaven to host the blogs that moved over.

Which YC founding partner wrote 'Founders at Work', a 2007 book of startup interviews?

Jessica Livingston published Founders at Work in 2007, interviews with founders such as Steve Wozniak; she and Paul Graham hosted the weekly dinners for YC's first founders in Cambridge.

Robert Morris released his worm from which university, to disguise its origin?

Morris, then a Cornell graduate student, launched the worm from an MIT computer on 2 November 1988 so it would not be traced back to Cornell.

YC co-founder Trevor Blackwell founded which humanoid-robot company?

Trevor Blackwell founded Anybots in 2001; it built the self-balancing humanoid Dexter and later the QB telepresence robot.

What was Paul Graham's 1995 startup, arguably the first web application, called?

Viaweb, founded in 1995 by Paul Graham and Robert Morris, let users build online stores inside a browser; Yahoo bought it in 1998 and renamed it Yahoo Store.

Graham's online-store startup was sold to Yahoo in 1998 for stock worth about how much?

455,000 Yahoo shares; the product became Yahoo! Store.

Graham's online-store startup was written mostly in which language?

Common Lisp powered the Viaweb software that let users make their own Internet stores; Graham's essay 'Beating the Averages' argues the language was the secret weapon.

What is the name of the hypothetical language in Graham's essay 'Beating the Averages'?

A Blub programmer cannot see what more powerful languages offer.

Which publisher put out Graham's essay collection 'Hackers & Painters'?

O'Reilly Media published Hackers & Painters in 2004; its cover is Bruegel's Tower of Babel rather than the usual O'Reilly animal.

Paul Graham announced Arc in 2001; when was it finally released?

Arc was released on 29 January 2008, nearly seven years after Graham announced it, implemented on top of MzScheme, the Scheme later renamed Racket.

Where was Paul Graham born?

Paul Graham was born in Weymouth, Dorset, in 1964 and grew up in Pittsburgh; he moved back to England in 2016.

Paul Graham's undergraduate degree from Cornell was in which subject?

Paul Graham earned a BA in philosophy from Cornell in 1986 before his Harvard PhD in computer science; he later studied painting at RISD and in Florence.

The Harvard talk that led to YC was later published under what title?

Graham's March 2005 talk to the Harvard Computer Society was published as the essay 'How to Start a Startup'; the students' response led him to start Y Combinator that year.

Sam Altman dropped out of which university to co-found Loopt?

Sam Altman left Stanford in 2005, aged 19 and two years into computer science, to build Loopt in Y Combinator's first batch.

Which company bought Loopt in March 2012?

Green Dot, the prepaid-card company, bought Loopt for $43.4 million in March 2012 after the location-sharing app failed to gain traction.

What colour is the bar across the top of Hacker News?

Hacker News has had an orange top bar (#ff6600) since its 2007 launch, matching Y Combinator's orange logo.

What does a green username on Hacker News signify?

Hacker News renders a username in green while the account is new, so readers can tell fresh accounts from established ones; the colour disappears once the account ages.

What is Airbnb's name short for?

Airbnb is short for Airbed and Breakfast: in 2007 the founders rented air mattresses in their San Francisco apartment to design-conference visitors, breakfast included.

How did Airbnb's founders raise $30,000 before joining YC in 2009?

Obama O's and Cap'n McCain's, mostly at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

What did Drew Houston keep forgetting, inspiring Dropbox?

Drew Houston conceived Dropbox in 2007 after repeatedly forgetting his USB flash drive; he wrote the first code on a bus from Boston to New York.

Under what company name did Houston found Dropbox in May 2007?

Houston incorporated the company as Evenflow, Inc. in May 2007 and entered Y Combinator's summer batch that year; it became Dropbox, Inc. in October 2009.

How much free storage did Dropbox offer when it launched in 2008?

Dropbox launched publicly at TechCrunch50 in September 2008 with 2 GB of free storage, and the free Basic tier stayed at 2 GB for more than a decade.

The Collison brothers who founded Stripe come from which country?

Patrick won Ireland's Young Scientist exhibition at 16.

In 2021 Stripe moved its US headquarters to which Californian city?

Stripe moved its US headquarters from San Francisco to Oyster Point in South San Francisco in 2021, pairing it with Dublin as dual headquarters.

Which two PayPal-linked figures were among Stripe's 2011 investors?

Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, both PayPal co-founders, joined Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz and SV Angel in Stripe's $2 million round in 2011.

What was Reddit's founders' rejected first idea for YC?

Huffman and Ohanian pitched My Mobile Menu, for ordering food by text message; Graham rejected it, then called them back to build something else, which became Reddit.

Which Reddit co-founder returned as CEO in 2015 and led its 2024 IPO?

Steve Huffman came back as Reddit's CEO in July 2015 after Ellen Pao resigned, and was still chief executive when Reddit listed on the NYSE in March 2024.

Where were Reddit founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian college roommates?

They met Paul Graham at a lecture in Boston during spring break.

Which publisher bought Reddit in October 2006?

Condé Nast bought Reddit in October 2006 for a reported $10 to $20 million, and the team moved to San Francisco.

Under what ticker did Reddit list in March 2024?

Its market cap was about $10 billion by July 2024.

Aaron Swartz's company that merged with Reddit was called what?

Infogami, Aaron Swartz's site-building startup from YC's first batch, merged with Reddit in late 2005; Swartz had also helped write the RSS 1.0 spec and Markdown.

Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong had been an engineer at which YC alumnus before 2012?

Co-founder Fred Ehrsam, a Goldman trader, found him through his Reddit posts.

Which monthly Hacker News thread lets companies post job openings?

An 'Ask HN: Who is hiring?' thread appears on the first weekday of every month, with companies posting roles in the comments; a sibling thread covers freelancers.

DoorDash began in 2013 as a site with what name?

DoorDash started in 2013 as PaloAltoDelivery.com, a landing page four Stanford students built to take orders for local restaurants; it joined Y Combinator's Summer 2013 batch.

What is Instacart's legal corporate name?

Apoorva Mehta incorporated Instacart as Maplebear Inc. in 2012, and Maplebear Inc. was the name on its September 2023 IPO filing, trading as CART.

Twitch was spun off in 2011 from which general-interest streaming site?

Justin.tv co-founder Justin Kan had 'lifecast' his whole life from a webcam on a hat; the general-interest platform spun off Twitch in June 2011.

Amazon bought Twitch in 2014 for how much?

Amazon bought Twitch for about $970 million in cash in August 2014, the same month Justin.tv itself was shut down.

Cruise, the self-driving company from YC, was acquired by which carmaker in 2016?

General Motors bought Cruise Automation in March 2016 in a deal reported at about $1 billion; in December 2024 GM stopped funding its robotaxi work and absorbed the team.

Which YC partner created Gmail and suggested 'Don't be evil' as Google's motto?

Paul Buchheit, Google's 23rd employee, built Gmail and proposed 'Don't be evil'; he later co-founded FriendFeed and became a Y Combinator partner in 2010.

Who coined the term 'unicorn' for a $1 billion startup, in 2013?

Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures coined 'unicorn' in a November 2013 TechCrunch post that counted just 39 US software startups valued at $1 billion or more.

Which prefix marks a Hacker News post showing something the poster built?

Show HN posts share something the poster made, such as a project or app, and get their own /show listing; Ask HN is for questions to the community.

Which Silicon Valley street is a metonym for venture capital?

Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, home to Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins and Andreessen Horowitz, is shorthand for venture capital; it runs from Palo Alto toward Woodside.

Which social news site billed itself 'News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters'?

Slashdot is sometimes abbreviated as /., and Rob 'CmdrTaco' Malda founded it in 1997 with the tagline 'News for Nerds'.

Who founded TechCrunch in June 2005?

Michael Arrington started TechCrunch in June 2005 as a blog about new web companies; AOL bought it in September 2010 for a reported $25 to $30 million.

Product Hunt, whose voting system resembles Hacker News, was founded by whom in 2013?

Ryan Hoover started Product Hunt in November 2013 as an email list before building the site; AngelList bought it in December 2016 for a reported $20 million.

Techstars, YC's accelerator rival, was founded in 2006 in which city?

Techstars was founded in Boulder, Colorado, in 2006 by David Cohen, Brad Feld, David Brown and Jared Polis; its first program there in 2007 took ten companies.

When a popular site links to a smaller one and the traffic crashes it, the 'hug of death' is also called what?

Slashdotting takes its name from the Slashdot effect: a popular website links to a smaller one, the traffic balloons and the small server buckles under the hug of death.

Before it became Hacker News on August 14, 2007, what had Paul Graham called the site at its February 2007 launch?

Startup News, occasionally styled News.YC, became known as Hacker News on August 14, 2007.

Which moderator posts on Hacker News under the username 'tomhow'?

Tom Howard moderates Hacker News alongside Daniel Gackle, who posts under the username dang.

What was the name of Rob Malda's personal website that preceded Slashdot in October 1997?

Malda's personal site Chips & Dips, run while he was a computer-science student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, grew into Slashdot in 1997.

What was Rob Malda going for when he registered the Slashdot domain?

Malda wanted something silly and unpronounceable as a URL: try saying h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org out loud, as he put it.

To which Linux site was Slashdot sold in June 1999 for $1.5 million cash plus stock?

Andover.net merged with VA Linux in 2000, later becoming SourceForge, Inc. and then Geeknet.

Which newspaper hired about fifteen Digg engineers in the July 2012 break-up?

In July 2012 The Washington Post's SocialCode unit hired about fifteen Digg engineers for a reported $12 million, while LinkedIn bought the patents and Betaworks took the brand.

With which Reddit co-founder did Kevin Rose repurchase Digg in 2025?

Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian announced in March 2025 that they had bought Digg, the site Rose founded in 2004, and would relaunch it.