I would say there's an enormous bias, (ycxxx) in the title gets a lot of early upvotes. Not to mention the obsession with PG - even his tweets get submitted, and fast.
But those stories aren't that frequent and once they get their friends' votes they're competing on a pretty level playing field ... if the submission's not genuinely interesting it won't last.
To be fair articles about startups founded but other non-YCers HNers get a similar boost, although they don't have the advantage of an easy tag to distinguish them from other articles.
But those stories aren't that frequent and once they get their friends' votes they're competing on a pretty level playing field ... if the submission's not genuinely interesting it won't last.