That's not what the article says:

"Jessica and I decided one night to start it, and the next day we recruited my friends Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell."

At least in the article, it's pretty clear that they decided to start the company together, and then brought on a couple other friends. (I've read elsewhere that the actual story was more like Jessica was looking for jobs at VC firms, the VCs were dragging their feet, and so PG was like "Fuck it. We'll start our own.")

"Brought her on to handle marketing at YC" is something you're injecting into the text, it's not anything that they wrote.

What do you find tone deaf about it? I'm unable to extract this message from the essay: "No, really, my girlfriend was around to be the work mom and handle the social stuff!" It reads more to me like "despite all she's accomplished, the press is never going to do her justice, and if no one's going to, I will."