They should disclose it. It's clearly there, every YC company gets a TechCrunch splash, and assuming Mike was involved in setting up such an arrangement, then Mike is looking after both his past and future interests.

Read like that, Mike's post is then clearly just a little bit of politics. It's not turning the drama down, it's looking after someone that looked after him at some point and may do in future.

Viewed from outside the valley, whenever I see stuff like this I wish we had journalistic standards rather than blogger opinions. Declare your interests, state any arrangements you've got in place. Then I'll read the opinion without feeling I am being duped. Without that you just get noise chambers.