Unseen Upside: Investments Beyond Their Returns
Oct 19, 2026 · 39 min · 11 segments
**What does it take to build a ship that can spend months at sea without a crew?** Navy veteran Rylan Hamilton is working to find out. At Blue Water Autonomy, his team is developing a vessel designed…
Rylan HamiltonGuestRenny McPhersonGuestBeth MacdonaldGuestDean DimizasGuestDaveGuest
When I was in the US Navy 20 plus years ago, we didn't have these asymmetric threats that were threatening some of our most expensive platforms.
Today, Rylan Hamilton is the CEO and co-founder of Blue Water Autonomy, a defense technology and shipbuilding company based just outside of Boston, Massachusetts.
And when he says asymmetric threats, what he means is cheap weapons that can threaten a billion dollar ship.
When I was either on a frigate or amphibious transport ship and we were sailing all around the world, we really weren't that worried about a drone coming and attacking us or anything like that.
This whole defense tech industry is basically bringing innovation at a much higher speed than we've seen within the defense industry in general over the last 50 years.
Renny McPherson is the founder of First In, a venture capital firm built by people who came up through the military and intelligence communities.
For many years, post-Cold War, there was an incredible consolidation by the U.S. government, which went to dozens of large security companies, defense companies, and said, we only want there to be a few large, what we call prime contractors.
And now they're less than half a dozen, and they do tens of billions of dollars of revenue.
When I was in the US Navy 20 plus years ago, we didn't have these asymmetric threats that were threatening some of our most expensive platforms.
Today, Rylan Hamilton is the CEO and co-founder of Blue Water Autonomy, a defense technology and shipbuilding company based just outside of Boston, Massachusetts.
And when he says asymmetric threats, what he means is cheap weapons that can threaten a billion dollar ship.
When I was either on a frigate or amphibious transport ship and we were sailing all around the world, we really weren't that worried about a drone coming and attacking us or anything like that.
This whole defense tech industry is basically bringing innovation at a much higher speed than we've seen within the defense industry in general over the last 50 years.
Renny McPherson is the founder of First In, a venture capital firm built by people who came up through the military and intelligence communities.
For many years, post-Cold War, there was an incredible consolidation by the U.S. government, which went to dozens of large security companies, defense companies, and said, we only want there to be a few large, what we call prime contractors.
And now they're less than half a dozen, and they do tens of billions of dollars of revenue.
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