I find this an interesting point. In some sense, Hacker News publishes anything that can receive enough upvotes. But in another sense, YC interests are highly supported by the ecosystem.
For example, job postings for YC companies are posted like articles but without comments attached, particularly negative articles about YC startups are often (though not always) flagged by an unknown team of editors, and YC stories on TechCrunch are almost always upvoted (and are allowed to have YC in the title, leading to a signaling effect).
None of this is to suggest that anyone necessarily has any bad intentions, but rather that stories on HN do seem to be highly curated by people who may have what might be considered traditional conflicts-of-interest.
