Welcome to kwharrison13.com
The notebook of Kyle Harrison: General Partner at Contrary, founder of Contrary Research.
This week's essay
A Tale of Two (Weird) Cities, 7 November 2026. Why Austin boomed while Portland stalled, and what it says about scaling anything
Austin and Portland started out with the same slogan, “Keep [Our City] Weird,” but then split real hard. Portland didn’t collapse, per se, but it sure lost a decade, and I think it lost the ability to correct itself. The cure is less about slogans and more about shovels: culture might be the most noticeable part of the brand, but supply and incentives are the operating model. (Full essay…)
From the archive
Venture Capital Doesn't Exist: What we call 'venture capital' is actually four different things. Continuing to pretend otherwise does a disservice to everyone involved.
On this week in past years
- 2025 – “Build What’s Fundable”
- 2024 – Embrace The Nuance
- 2023 – The Bubble Brains of Silicon Valley
- 2022 – Stewards of Capital
About Kyle
General Partner @ Contrary. Founder @ Contrary Research. Father of 4. Member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Background: Index Ventures · Coatue · TCV · Former Founder.
Current focus
- Identifying the best early stage founders who are building the world I want to live in.
- Finally publishing The Anduril Thesis; a book on Anduril I've been working on for years.
- Weave AI into every aspect of my life as best I can.
- Help my 9-year old son build a curriculum that will inspire him to change the world.
- Build interactive software to maintain the knowledge management I've spent years cataloguing.
On writing
“I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.”
On the bookshelf
Read in 2026:
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck
- Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
- Out of Control by Kevin Kelly
- Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant
- Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
- Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew S. Grove
Recent long reads
- The End of Nvidia as the Central Bank of AI (Note to the Slow Team) · Yoni Rechtman
- A Layman Thinks About AI · Howard Marks
- The Logic-less Crusade That Just Killed a Data Center · Charles C. W. Cooke
- Acquired Has the Best Business Model in Media, Period · Emily Sundberg
- Have You Considered Actually Trying · Michaël Trazzi