Tom Ferguson at Burnt Island Ventures has built his entire investment thesis around water as the fundamental molecule that allows society to exist, making it his sole focus rather than treating it as just another climate vertical, and he runs his own sector-specific podcast where he interviews founders and investors in water technology. He brings specialized pattern recognition from screening hundreds of water companies and has developed a formal 18-section diligence checklist, while reframing water's traditional conservatism—like long sales cycles and hard-to-displace incumbents—as structural moats that create exceptionally durable and profitable companies once established.