HackerTube went viral as Andrej Karpathy's weekend hack: Claude filtered 43 million Hacker News comments down to the YouTube videos HN keeps recommending. HackerTube AI is an independent site built on its open data that adds one thing the original left out on purpose: you.
YouTube's recommendations are tuned for watch time. For nearly two decades, Hacker News commenters have done something different: pointed each other at the conference talk that changed how they write software, the lecture that made a subject click, the documentary nobody else knows about. HackerTube collected those recommendations.
The method is simple and strict. Every HN comment from 2007 to 2026 was scanned for YouTube links. A video stays only if at least three different people linked it, with real commentary, in at least three different months. Claude read each comment and labelled what the commenter was doing: recommending, citing, joking or criticising. Videos are ranked by how many separate months people recommended them, so lasting recommendations beat one viral spike.
What HackerTube AI adds
Sign in with Google to keep likes and Watch later on every device.
Connect YouTube and we match your likes and subscriptions to the catalogue.
Import your watch history from Google Takeout to hide what you've already seen.
The essentials you've missed: of the 500 most-recommended videos, which ones you've never watched.
A feed tuned to you, still drawn only from videos HN has vouched for.
Browsing, search and topics stay free with no account. Personalisation is a one-time $5.
HN recommends it repeatedly as one of the best and most entertaining programming talks, and as the talk that makes the Y combinator click, even for people who do not use Ruby.
HN repeatedly calls it the best in-depth introduction to IC manufacturing, a sense-of-awe talk by an independent engineer, while wishing for an updated version.
HN treats it as the best starting point for really understanding backprop and neural nets, because Karpathy explains the why with intuition and builds everything in code.
HN repeatedly calls it the clearest introduction to waves and transmission-line behavior, better than modern explainers.
Questions
What is HackerTube?
HackerTube is a weekend project Andrej Karpathy shared in October 2026. Claude read 43 million Hacker News comments from 2007 to 2026 and kept the 6,454 YouTube videos that HN commenters kept recommending to each other, across different people and different months. The original site is hackertube.org and its data is open.
Is HackerTube AI the same site as hackertube.org?
No. HackerTube AI is an independent project built on HackerTube's open dataset (ODC-By 1.0). It is not affiliated with Andrej Karpathy, hackertube.org, Hacker News, Y Combinator, YouTube or Google. It adds Google sign-in, YouTube connect, watch-history import and a personal feed.
What does Pro do?
Pro is a one-time $5. Connect your YouTube account or import your watch history and HackerTube AI shows which of the 500 Hacker News essentials you have not watched yet, and builds a feed of HN-recommended videos matched to your likes and subscriptions.
Can I build my own HackerTube?
Yes. Karpathy's post suggests pointing Claude at the open data zip and asking for your own version. Our guide walks through it step by step. Read the guide.
Do I need an account?
No. Browsing, search, topics and likes work without signing in. Sign in only to sync across devices or to personalise with YouTube.
