They didn't mention Java as a possible solution, even though its GC's are far better than anything else out there. I have nothing against Rust but if I was at a startup I would save my innovation points for where they're mandatory

One step beyond good Java GCs is to write fully zero-GC Java code. The advantage of it is complete control over your performance which means your software is going to be consistently fast. The disadvantage is that it is relatively difficult to obtain.

If you want to see an example of fully zero-GC Java, you can check out QuestDB on Github [1] - Disclaimer I work for QuestDB.

[1]https://github.com/questdb/questdb