We hear the term “bubble” almost daily, especially in an era where investment floods into the AI market and hype surrounds artificial intelligence. Whenever a business mentions or even lightly touches on AI, its stock immediately surges. While some see AI as the future and believe this technology will not repeat past mistakes, others view this as a sign that the world is entering another “bubble.”Tags: ["stock market", "AI investment", "financial bubble"]
One investor known worldwide and legendary for The Big Short is Michael Burry. He is another who takes a contrarian view of the AI trend, seeing today’s market as “irrational.” Investors speculate heavily on AI stocks, and market value is concentrated in just a few large companies.
Similar to his contrary stance during the subprime crisis, his reputation began with his success betting against the 2008 financial crisis, where he made huge profits while others faced an economic meltdown that affected the global system. His story was later adapted into a book and a film.
This article from Thairath Money in theHow to Make Moneycolumn delves deeper to introduce Michael Burry, an investor so precise in market prediction that even Warren Buffett gave him a nickname. We explore his background, why he chose his own investment path, and how he achieved success few can replicate.
Though little is known about his childhood, reliable sources state Michael Burry was born and raised in San Jose, San Francisco, California. A pivotal early event occurred at age two when he was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, resulting in the loss of his left eye and requiring a prosthetic eye throughout his life.
He grew up as a solitary child despite having three siblings. He once said, “By nature, I didn’t have many friends. I was happy living in my own world of thoughts.”
After high school, he studied English, economics, and medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He once tweeted, “Have you ever felt lonely at university?” He added, “I attended UCLA after being rejected by all Ivy League schools. I was just an ordinary person, had no friends, and now I don’t keep in touch with anyone from that time.”
He acknowledged it wasn’t easy but he overcame it. In 1997, he enrolled in Vanderbilt University Medical School, later doing specialized internships in neurology and pathology at Stanford Hospital.
While practicing medicine, he developed a keen interest in investing, dedicating his free time to studying the stock market, analyzing financial statements, and starting a blog to share his own market analyses, which became an early model for investment forums.
His writings attracted attention from investors, including Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Capital, who hoped Burry would become a full-time investor.
When his passion for investing surpassed his interest in medicine, Michael Burry quit his medical career despite carrying over $145,000 in student debt, to manage his own fund, which he had founded while still a doctor but had no assets under management yet.
What he had was confidence that he could eventually make substantial money. In 2000, he established a hedge fund called ." Scion Capital. The initial capital came from his own money, plus $20,000 from his mother and $30,000 from his three siblings combined.
He named the fund after the fantasy novel "The Scions of Shannara" by Terry Brooks, published in 1990, one of his favorite series. From then on, he made a name as a fund manager who heavily invested against prevailing market trends.
That same year, Joel Greenblatt invested $1 million in Scion Capital, and Jack Byrne of White Mountains fund also contributed $600,000.
By the end of 2004, Scion Capital managed assets totaling over $600 million. Burry once said, “If you want to be a great investor, you must choose an investment style that suits you. In the late ’90s, I became a value investor because I felt what others were doing was utterly crazy.”
His success hinged on detailed fundamental analysis. He read nearly every page of annual reports and financial statements, studied company business models seriously, and wasn’t afraid to invest in stocks overlooked by most.
Michael Burry’s hallmark is investing in undervalued stocks in companies facing pivotal situations or those ignored by institutional investors. Through this approach, his reputation quickly spread widely.
At the peak of his fund’s popularity, between 2003 and 2005, he began seeing warning signs and alerted the market that another financial crisis was looming. He identified vulnerabilities in the real estate market, especially focusing on subprime mortgages, also known as Subprime Mortgage.
While most believed the real estate market was strong and still growing, and banks were lending to borrowers with poor credit because they thought housing prices would never fall and owners wouldn’t abandon their homes,
Burry saw things differently. He scrutinized every loan, structure, and collateral type, spotting several clear danger signals: worsening borrower quality due to loans to bad credit groups, overly relaxed lending standards, and a system dependent on rising home prices.
Convinced this system would collapse, he began buying Credit Default Swaps (CDS)—insurance against default on securities backed by subprime loans—a novel and contrarian strategy at the time.
Most investors in his fund doubted his decisions, many opposed them, and some even withdrew their investments, believing he was betting on an impossible event.
Yet he remained steadfast, trusting his own data over popular opinion. When the real estate bubble burst in 2007, sparking the 2008 global financial crisis, his bet became one of the most famous in financial history.
That wager generated enormous returns for his fund. Reports show his investors made over $700 million in profits, with Burry himself earning around $100 million.
His success made Michael Burry famous worldwide. Michael Lewis wrote the story as the book The Big Short, later adapted into a 2015 film starring Christian Bale as Burry.
Warren Buffett dubbed him “Cassandra,” after the Greek mythological prophetess cursed to foresee the future accurately but never be believed. Burry later used “Cassandra” as his personal Twitter handle.
In 2008, facing investor pressure and skepticism about his strategies that affected his mental health, he made a major decision to close Scion Capital and manage only his own money.
He then stepped away from managing others’ funds to spend time with family, play music, and study personal interests while maintaining his investment skills.
In 2013, he returned to investing by founding Scion Asset Management, with a philosophy nearly unchanged: investing in companies priced below intrinsic value, emphasizing fundamentals, and disregarding short-term market speculation.
Over the years, Burry continued building his reputation for contrarian investing. He invested early in some technology stocks, criticized ETF growth, warned of market bubbles, and often chose investments differing from big institutional players.
He also became influential on social media, where his brief, concise posts—often deleted within hours—sparked wide financial debates.
Then in 2025, he surprised the financial world by announcing the closure of Scion Asset Management. In a letter to investors, he explained, “The market today is driven by increasingly irrational behavior.”
He said the AI-era market is moving in unprecedented ways, with key factors of this "irrationality" including:
He believes “The market no longer values companies based on their true worth as it once did.”
Without fundamentals guiding prices, his style of value investing becomes harder. Rather than adapting to short-term speculation, he chose to exit the investment arena, reflecting his lifelong principle of prioritizing freedom of decision over following the market.
To date, Michael Burry occasionally shares his views on the U.S. economy and investing in his own style. Many investors respect him for his technical and fundamental analysis expertise and his ability to resist market trends influencing investment decisions.
However, Michael Burry’s name does not appear on Forbes’ billionaire list. According toCelebrity Net Worth,his net worth is estimated between $200 million and $300 million from ongoing investments in stocks and other assets.
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