You're right, I thought that Dan would make the final call rather than Kevin.

But I never thought that votes alone would decide anything; the original post explicitly ruled out that possibility.

If it's unsurprising that YC picks based on their gut and not on any hard criteria... it shouldn't be. Surprise, almost all white dudes again!

This entire ordeal has shown us the thin skin of VCs and VC culture.

If HN/YC wanted to do the right thing, they should have taken some time to assess removing Pinboard BEFORE voting ended. Instead, what they did was game their own system: They likely sensed Pinboard could be trouble from the beginning, but hoped they would not win. They attempted to achieve that result by letting the voting play out, and THEN disqualified Pinboard when the voting results were not in their favor.