I have been a member of HN since 2009. Back then I was fascinated by startup culture after seeing major exits like AdMob and Zappos. I used to think there was something magical or lucky about achieving startup success. But what I learned from 15 years on HN is that the secret to a successful startup is pretty straightforward (if not easy). Solve a problem that a lot of people or businesses have, charge money for your solution, talk to customers, stay lean early on, fail early and often, iterate and improve, and don't run out of money.

Sturgeon's Law applies to everything. I'd say about 1 in 1000 submitted articles are interesting and far less than that for user posts. If pressed, I'd probably say that the rise of LLM being used to cheat in education, job interviews, and the workplace is probably the most recent thing I learned of value from HN.

I think HN is more useful to me as a way of gauging the zeitgeist of the industry and its workers and as a way of practicing writing in a more formal tone than most online messaging.