Interesting perspective - I never really thought about the tone of my comments. I've always played "the devil's advocate" because it's the way that the smaller start-ups I was involved with stay alive. I'm going to make sure that I praise good ideas first ... and then perhaps warn of potential pitfalls. Sorry if I participated in turning HN into a downer.

As an aside, I don't read HN that way. Even when there's a pessimistic tone, I often read right through it and think to myself "that's some good advice". It will be interesting to see whether we become more bearish simply due to the COVID-19 environment we're all working in now.