iX: the videos Hacker News recommends
Not the channel's most viewed videos: the ones HN commenters kept linking with real commentary. The top pick, "Rick Reed - WhatsApp: Half a billion unsuspecting FreeBSD users", pointed to as a rare look at how a tiny engineering team ran WhatsApp's massive scale on FreeBSD and Erlang.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2015–2019talkPointed to as a rare look at how a tiny engineering team ran WhatsApp's massive scale on FreeBSD and Erlang.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2020–2025talkRecommended as the authoritative, first-hand telling of BSD lore whenever Unix and BSD history comes up.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2014–2016talkCited in init-system and Unix debates as FreeBSD's stance on launchd versus systemd, and recommended for its view of FreeBSD's future.
Questions
Which iX video does Hacker News recommend most?
Rick Reed - WhatsApp: Half a billion unsuspecting FreeBSD users: recommended in 2 different months by 2 HN users between 2015 and 2019.
Is this every iX video?
No. Only videos that at least three different HN users linked, in at least three different months, with at least a sentence of their own commentary. That filter is what makes the list useful.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.