I wouldn't be too sure. Of course this is anecdotal, but the one Startup that actually replied to my application and said that they were about to make an offer just said they were implementing a hiring freeze as well. I might just not be an attractive candidate, but I haven't recently found many of those high-paying tech jobs that were so popular in 2021.

Startups that aren't profitable (ie: most of them) are in even more trouble than large still profitable companies. There's less VC money and they need to preserve runway or they'll go out of business.

Something I regularly advocate for. I think other industries could be doing a lot more with software with embedded developers rather than relying on SaaS startups for features and automation. But that's untenable because while it would definitely be valuable, it's not always going to make financial sense with tech wages being inflated by the SV venture capital game.