We do the opposite, in fact [1]. Negative stories about YC-funded companies (or YC itself) are given greater visibility than equivalent stories about non-YC-related entities.

When YC-funded companies are featured in Launch HN or Show HN posts, it's clearly denoted in the title or top-text. YC-funded companies don't get preferential treatment in the rankings for any type of post other than Launch HN posts.

ClickHouse isn't a YC-funded company. We don't penalize people for mentioning their employer in the comments unless it's blatantly promotional, in which case it breaks the guideline against promotional posting, and such comments should be flagged by the community.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...