Fairly sure the vast majority of Hacker News isn't making 300k a year in either big tech _or_ startups. Plus the author of the post mentioned wasn't some scrappy gung-ho founder trying to make it at any cost, they had Google money and one of their stories was their resentment at their cofounders forcing a $10m exit of one of the companies. No offence to them, it was an interesting journey described very openly, but it didn't sound like they were looking for a pep talk.

I suspect Hacker News is just bigger and less skewed towards Silicon Valley than it was in 2013. Maybe that changes the vibe, but I don't think anyone is (or should be) deciding whether to do a startup based on the tone of comments on an internet forum.