See young engineers questioning assumptions, building physical infrastructure in the real world and learning. Perhaps re-learning things biologists with decades of experience find trivial. But also questioning CRO and equipment prices/timelines, outfitting an empty room, building their own plate readers, and understanding data generating processes by doing the work. There is a lot of good intent here. There are legitimate criticisms of the claims and lab practices. We should maintain the highest bar for knowledge creation, safety and technical communication while encouraging scrappy teams to try new things. Let them fail technically, get humbled by the physical world, then encourage them to try something else. The history of technology teaches us that interesting discoveries and processes can come from projects like these. Many of you might be their heroes. Your publications may have encouraged them to try this. The antagonistic framing of “SV tech bro” fighting “biologist” that always pops up on the timeline is a terrible way to think about a field where progress depends on scientists and engineers working in lockstep on hard problems. There are real issues with biotech. I’ve watched seasoned academics and expert drug hunters burn billions of venture capital within the existing biotech formation structure. Expertise is essential, but conventional thinking deserves scrutiny too. We need new ways of thinking about engineering biology, and room for people to try them.