I don't understand what you're referring to. Can you explain further?
Edit: oh, I see - you're talking about >>35719273 . Yes, sometimes when startups ask me for help, I make suggestions about how they can change their articles to better appeal to HN readers, or to avoid pitfalls. For example, mentioning one's startup only at the end of an otherwise interesting article (which I guess people do because marketers told them it was a "call to action", or something?) makes many HN readers feel like the whole article was a bait-and-switch, and then they rush into comments to complain that the article is "just an ad" or whatnot. That's what happened in that thread - e.g. >>35718172 and >>35718321 . In such cases I advise authors to mention their startup right at the beginning - an easy fix. I don't think most people would call that censorship! - certainly the authors who take the advice do so freely and say they're grateful for it.
I can't help but wonder if there's something else to your complaint because it's hard for me to understand why that would be objectionable. If you want to explain more I'd be interested...
Btw re "the richest people in SV" - the startup in that case wasn't SV related as far as I know, and certainly not YC related; I believe it's a spinoff from Andy Pavlo's research group at CMU. I wasn't helping them for any reason other than to make the HN thread more interesting and because they emailed to ask.