Ok, since this is getting attention, I'll explain. Launch HN posts for YC startu... | Hacker News
Launch HN posts for YC startups are one of three formal things that HN does for YC (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). The others are job ads for YC startups, and orange usernames for YC alumni—but only when displayed to other YC alumni, which always generates "why is my username not orange" emails. But I digress.
Launch HNs are like job ads in that they get an initial front-page placement, usually somewhere between #8 and #10. (I think job ads start a little higher). Then they fall down the page. Unlike job ads, though, launch posts can be upvoted and commented on. Once they've gotten their initial placement they function like regular stories. Occasionally the community finds one particularly interesting and it gets upvoted higher. This recent one spent quite a while at #1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22616857 (http://hnrankings.info/22616857/).
We started doing the Launch HNs three years ago. I was worried that the community would hate them because we were taking additional front page space for YC. (Our intention was to make it so that a launch post and a job ad wouldn't appear at the same time, but I never ended up writing that code, so sometimes they do.) But that hasn't ever come up. I think it's because launch threads are intrinsically more interesting than job ads (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22767319 downthread for more on that).
