1. He has extremely well-written essays on technology and business. Being able to think clearly and articulate cogently in this space is a rare skill, and I have deep respect for those who possess it. Joel Spolsky (who I also respect) is much more verbose than PG. Few tech writers achieve the level clarity of expression that Paul does in his writing, and he achieves it while writing about difficult and subtle things.

2. He has mentored a great many startups. Granted, he gets his pound of equity for cheap cheap but nonetheless this devotion so the cause of helping other geeks start companies is very admirable. Note that this is not the same thing as what the parent poster claimed: "hacking startups" and "starting the seed funding movement".

Also, building HackerNews is a very cool badge of honor but frankly it is nowhere near as sophisticated as Reddit (c'mon, "Unknown or Expired link" and hellbanning?). The fact that there is a driving function behind pageviews to it makes it a go-to place in the tech world, but the technology and codebase of HN itself is not anything terribly impressive.