From my experience, singing Travis Kalanick's praises (at least on HN) has generally been met with resistance. I remember everyone piling on him about that (what I thought was a relatively innocuous) company retreat memo a few years ago.
There's a big difference between admiring Kalanick as a person, and admitting he created the über startup. (I think) most people on HN realize that questionable ethics are strongly correlated with success.
