In interviewed at a local startup [1] and had a nice chat with one of the founders. We talked about 1h. It was pleasant and I got a code review assignment, timeboxed to 1h. Not sure if I managed to do something useful, but I handed back my solution in time and never heard from them again. I pinged them once more, but no response. I have not been able to figure out what that was about... maybe they were trying to get external people to review their code? Like, 1h of their time for 2h of mine? Or were they just not very well organized?
If it's a small startup where the founders are doing first interviews, then I'm sure they're just overwhelmed with tasks. I don't see what the value would be in having a founder chat with you for 1 hour to get a 1 hour code review out of you... unless they think your time is more valuable than their founders, which doesn't make much sense.
[1] https://www.vay.ai/