I think it was a humorous factoid rather than a dig; I don't think Sam Altman is attacking HN, nor do I think he thinks, or expects anyone reading his post to think, that HN / reddit scale comparisons are meaningful given their very different intended audiences.
Fair enough! I was thinking that theres not much of a comparison to draw as the hacker news crowd are quite different to the reddit crowd. I'd come here for an informed discussion and expertise... and assume I'd get mildly humorous trolling, lolcats and memes on reddit!
It's an odd comment given the fact that HN has never really tried to grow. There's a certain audience for HN, and it seems to be understood that growth for growth's sake can sometimes put that at risk. (anybody remember back when PG would ask everybody to post really obscure stuff for a few days when HN was seeing an influx?)
Seeing as how Sam Altman is president of Y Combinator, and there's a reason Hacker News' URL is news.ycombinator.com... yes, yes Sam Altman was definitely intending to insult Hacker News and everyone involved with it.
I don't know if it was intended as a dig, but even as a casual and mostly-lurking HN user I perceived it that way, and was mildly offended on HN's behalf.
I'll go check it out, are there any other similar subreddits the community could suggest I should check out? I already am a follower of /r/bitcoin and /r/bitcoinmarkets for reasons you can probably guess!
Was that a dig at Hacker News?