It was inevitable in that respect that the VC's interests would start to reflect on how the forum was managed due to the financial incentive, but I just assumed that they were smart enough to not boil the frog like every other for-profit media site because they would lose the tech crowd who are the first to notice when they're being boiled.
I do wonder who their audience is now. I can't see them going the way of reddit and enticing in the non-tech crowd, because then... what would HN's identity even be?