This job market must be an absolutely terrific value for business owners, hiring managers and startup founders. Only now can they get this level of talent for cheap.

Never really thought about this way. You have people with Meta, Amazon and various big name brands on their resume applying for insurance companies, hospitals, startups that will clearly fail, and just normal companies that will never get the level of talent that is applying to their roles in any other job market. I work for a shit tier company and we have people with Meta, Atlassian, Amazon, Pinterest etc applying for roles within my team that 4-5 years ago we would have had to settle for new grads from no name schools, who would've left anyways at the 18 month mark (just like we expect these current applicants to do). Hell, if an employer really wants to attract top tier talent, open a remote job in 2026. If I knew anything about starting or running a company, being a founder in this current market would be great right now I bet. Tons of experienced talent out there that will settle for any job. At least I think this is the way a founder could see it?