hmmm, i'm not sure there's anything special about hacker news itself, it would have to be a breakdown of YC itself. yc has a strong story, it knows who it wants to appeal to. I do like the original yc site which lays out that story very clearly. waybackmachine it. Most sites would do better if they started off with a manifesto on a plain html page, rather than a design template with 50 features, but nothing to really say.