Since there is so much love for the big social networks these days ;), and the next obvious evolution of Hacker News is an actual social network facilitating the tech-biz community in a subtly paranoid, optionally anonymous sort of way... who's got the juice? There is certainly a (very clever) user base.

Float ideas with "partners needed" feelers, and ability to "recommend oneself" to a potential project; Present partial APIs / nascent products / alphas withing the community; Business model could be management services, consulting, legal, fulfillment(?), etc.