> I see a ton of founders and funders with zero biology background thinking that they have the vision and can just hire biology expertise.

Genuinely curious about your data here. The two first companies mentioned in the article (Zymergen and Gingko) have founders with biology background. Many other companies I know as well.

> You would never use CRISPR if you had the option of using Cre. I’ve made several stable transgenic animal lines using Tol2 transgenisis, which is much higher efficiency, too.

That probably depends on the organism you're working with. E.g. with baker's yeast, my preference would definitely be CRISPR/Cas9 instead of cre recombinase (see e.g. https://academic.oup.com/femsyr/article/15/2/fou004/534426 ).