Antoine Walter

I'm a second-generation water engineer. I grew up steering excavators through Alsace river beds while my dad's crews fixed whatever I'd dug. I've done water on three continents since: telling Engie's story across Asia-Pacific, then a decade at Suez selling and commissioning some of Europe's first micropollutant-treatment plants (at the cost of ~180 flights a year), and now leading global business development for water & mining at Georg Fischer, the job that moved my family to Furry Creek, British Columbia, where I write this with the Pacific and the occasional whale out the window.

(don't) Waste Water started in the 2020 lockdown as a hack: a business developer with no one left to call, turning his contacts into a podcast and asking every guest who to call next. 502 episodes later, it's the real me: a weekly, independent read on water technology, the people building it, and the money behind it. No press releases, no pay-to-play, no sponsored content. I'm a cheerleader for this sector, but only ever from a position of adversarial due diligence. The skeptic is what makes the cheerleading worth anything.

I don't think I know everything. Quite the opposite: my one trick is to get obsessed with something, drill it until I've turned it inside out, and assemble enough hard-won intelligence to defend a view and, if needed, die on that hill. The hill right now: water is at an inflection point, and "same old, same old" will break a lot sooner than the industry credits. The data engine I'm building to prove it is Leviathan.

Off the clock: three kids, one cat, a piano I don't play nearly enough (it followed an oboe, a drum kit and a conductor's baton), and an unreasonable emotional stake in the San Antonio Spurs.