What the parent meant was:

"Must mean that we're trying to hide the fact that we funded them, right? It could only mean that."

Could be

A) sarcastic cover while distracting readers from the fact that there's no good reason (trying to get others to appeal to authority)

B) there's a real reason which is sufficiently obvious that someone jumping to conspiracy is off-kilter

If (B) were the situation, the "real reason" isn't obvious to me or to the parent (and I suspect you don't find it obvious either)

Hm. That is compelling logic. But, since you're right, that means YC is also distancing itself from Dropbox. And Airbnb. Holy, the whole thing is unraveling!

Please point to an example of a criticism of AirBnB or of Dropbox in which the submission title originally had (YC '*) in it and was edited to remove the YC association. I and many other would like to see it.

"Many others would like to see it". It is the question of our times.

The question of our times, by the way, is answerable with the search box at the bottom of the page.

Really? HN Search reveals the history of a link's title? That doesn't come up for me.

tptacek has proven himself unable to reply without snark in this thread. I decided not to challenge the point

I think this is true, and that I have lost my ability to take this subthread seriously.

But for the record, just go look for all the stories about YC companies that aren't labelled with "YCxxx".