I mean the established big tech companies are sitting on mountains of cash. I suspect they’ll start ramping up buybacks even more aggressively due to what they see as undervalued equity.

Yep, blowing the cash on stock buybacks. And then layoffs when the cash gets uncomfortably low.

The cash won't get "uncomfortably low" for profitable money printing machines (e.g. Apple) for quite a long time.

They just won't have quite as obscenely large of a dragon-esque hoard to sleep on.

I don't think VC-backed startups typically do stock buybacks? That's more of a Fortune 500 thing, AFAIK. "Startups" (of whatever size) are always concerned about the next funding round; I don't think they're going to burn runway to prop up the share price. It's companies like GE and IBM that do that, AFAIK.

I was referring to the OP’s comment that established publicly traded tech companies too will be under pressure to keep the stock price up and thus, aren’t immune to layoffs

I see. You have a point there. That would cement, in my mind, their transition from "growth" to "utility" companies, though, and I would expect them to start paying dividends.

Hammer and anvil.