Michael Burry

Michael Burry
Born	Michael James Burry 19 6, 1971
Birthplace	San Jose, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Investor, hedge fund manager, physician
Known for	Founding Scion Capital; predicting and profiting from the subprime mortgage crisis
Education	University of California, Los Angeles (BA) Vanderbilt University (MD)
Website	[https://www.scionasset.com/ Official site]

Michael James Burry (born June 19, 1971) is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and licensed physician who founded the hedge fund Scion Capital, later known as Scion Asset Management. Born in San Jose, California, Burry first gained attention in the investment world not through traditional Wall Street channels but through an unusual path: he was a medical resident who wrote about value investing on internet message boards in the late 1990s, attracting the notice of established investors and eventually launching his own fund. He is best known for being among the first investors to predict and profit from the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–2008, a feat that brought him international recognition after author Michael Lewis chronicled his story in the 2010 book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. The book was later adapted into the 2015 Academy Award–winning film The Big Short, in which actor Christian Bale portrayed Burry. Burry's investment philosophy centers on deep value investing and intensive independent research, and he has continued to attract public attention for his market predictions and commentary on financial topics including technology stocks and artificial intelligence. In 2025, Burry announced the closure of Scion Asset Management.

Early Life

Michael James Burry was born on June 19, 1971, in San Jose, California. He grew up in the San Jose area during a period of rapid growth in Silicon Valley. As a young child, Burry lost his left eye to retinoblastoma, a form of cancer, and has worn a prosthetic eye since childhood. This experience contributed to a sense of social isolation that Burry has spoken about publicly, and he has said that the glass eye made it difficult for him to read social cues and connect with others in conventional ways.

Burry was drawn to analytical thinking from a young age and developed an intense focus on subjects that interested him. He has described himself as having characteristics consistent with Asperger syndrome, a diagnosis he arrived at after one of his children was diagnosed with the condition. This self-diagnosis informed Burry's understanding of his own cognitive style — a capacity for deep, obsessive focus on data and patterns that would later prove central to his investment approach.

Despite the social difficulties he experienced growing up, Burry was academically accomplished. His early interests included economics and medicine, and he pursued both subjects during his higher education. His childhood in the heart of Silicon Valley, surrounded by the technology industry, may have contributed to his later comfort with online communities; in the late 1990s, Burry became one of the earliest investors to build a following through internet-based financial commentary.

Education

Burry attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. He subsequently enrolled at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he earned his Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree. After completing medical school, Burry began a residency in neurology at Stanford University Medical Center.

It was during his residency at Stanford that Burry's investment career effectively began. Working long hours as a medical resident, Burry spent his limited free time — often late at night — researching stocks and writing detailed analyses on internet message boards and his own personal website. His writings on value investing attracted a growing readership among both amateur and professional investors, including individuals at major financial firms who took notice of the quality and rigor of his analysis. Burry ultimately left medicine to pursue investing full-time, a decision that would prove consequential for the financial world.

Burry holds an active medical license in the state of California.

Career

Early Investing and Internet Following

In the late 1990s, while still completing his medical residency at Stanford, Burry began writing about stocks on Silicon Investor and other financial message boards. He also created his own website, where he published detailed investment analyses rooted in the value investing principles of Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett. Burry's approach was characterized by exhaustive research into financial statements, a focus on identifying undervalued securities, and a willingness to take contrarian positions.

His online writings attracted significant attention. Professional money managers and investors began following his posts, impressed by the depth and accuracy of his stock picks. Joel Greenblatt, a prominent value investor and author, was among those who noticed Burry's work online. This internet following gave Burry the credibility and initial investor interest necessary to launch his own fund.

Scion Capital

Burry founded Scion Capital LLC in 2000, leaving his medical residency to do so. The fund was named after Terry Brooks' novel The Scions of Shannara. He launched the fund with a relatively small amount of capital, but his early performance was strong. Scion Capital achieved significant returns in its first years of operation, outperforming the broader stock market at a time when the dot-com bubble was deflating and the S&P 500 was declining.

Burry's investment strategy at Scion Capital was grounded in fundamental analysis. He spent enormous amounts of time reading 10-K filings, financial statements, and other primary source documents to identify companies that were trading below their intrinsic value. He was known for his intense, solitary research process, often working alone in his office for extended periods.

Predicting the Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Burry's most notable investment decision was his bet against the subprime mortgage market, which he began constructing in 2005. Through his detailed analysis of mortgage lending practices and the composition of mortgage-backed securities (MBS), Burry concluded that the U.S. housing market was built on a foundation of risky, poorly underwritten loans that were likely to default in large numbers.

To profit from this analysis, Burry used credit default swaps (CDS) — essentially insurance contracts that would pay out if the underlying mortgage bonds defaulted. He persuaded several major Wall Street banks, including Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, to sell him credit default swaps on subprime mortgage bonds that he believed were most vulnerable to default. At the time, the housing market was still booming and these swaps could be purchased at low premiums, as most market participants believed the housing market was fundamentally sound.

Burry's position was deeply contrarian and put him at odds with his own investors. As the housing market continued to rise through 2006 and into 2007, the premiums on the credit default swaps drained Scion Capital's returns, and several investors demanded their money back or attempted to restrict Burry's ability to maintain the positions. Burry faced intense pressure and conflict with his investors during this period, which he later described as one of the most difficult experiences of his career.

When the subprime mortgage market began to collapse in 2007 and the broader financial crisis unfolded in 2008, Burry's credit default swaps surged in value. Scion Capital generated substantial returns for its investors — reported to be approximately 489 percent from its inception through the end of 2008, net of fees and expenses, compared with a return of approximately 3 percent for the S&P 500 over the same period. Burry himself earned a personal profit of approximately $100 million, and his investors earned approximately $700 million.

In an April 2010 opinion piece published in The New York Times, Burry wrote about his experience predicting the crisis and questioned why federal regulators, including the Federal Reserve, had failed to identify the risks he had seen years earlier. He noted that he had sent letters to regulators warning of the dangers in the mortgage market but received little response. Burry also testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, where he described his analysis and the warning signs he had identified.

Closure of Scion Capital and Later Funds

Following the financial crisis, Burry wound down the original Scion Capital fund. The strained relationships with investors during the period when his subprime bet was underwater — despite ultimately being vindicated — left Burry disillusioned with the hedge fund business and the dynamics of managing outside capital.

Burry subsequently founded Scion Asset Management, through which he continued to invest. The fund filed regular disclosures with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and its 13F filings were closely followed by investors and financial media seeking insight into Burry's market views.

In 2025, Burry announced that he was shutting down Scion Asset Management, bringing to a close his decades-long career managing outside investor capital.

Market Commentary and Predictions

Beyond his subprime mortgage trade, Burry has continued to attract attention for his public market commentary. He has made a series of predictions and observations about financial markets, often taking contrarian or bearish positions.

In early 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect global markets, Burry made public statements about the economic implications of pandemic lockdowns.

Burry has been vocal about what he perceives as speculative excesses in the technology sector. In 2026, he drew comparisons between the current market environment and the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, though some financial analysts have challenged this thesis. He has also expressed skepticism about the sustainability of the artificial intelligence boom, warning about what he considers an AI bubble. In February 2026, Burry shared a thought experiment from Citrini Research on AI, noting on X (formerly Twitter), "And you think I'm bearish." His AI skepticism has drawn responses from industry executives; one data center executive compared AI skeptics like Burry and Jim Chanos to villains from the Superman franchise.

In February 2026, Burry publicly targeted Palantir Technologies, flagging CEO Alex Karp's reported $17.2 million in private jet expenses and raising concerns about the company's valuation.

Burry has also reflected publicly on missed investment opportunities. In a February 2026 post on X, he described 26 years of major market calls and admitted that he had "slept" on Bitcoin after an early buying opportunity in 2013. Separately, he has noted that he purchased shares of Apple Inc. as early as 1998, a decision he has characterized as one of his earliest successful picks, though he has expressed regret about not holding the position longer.

Personal Life

Burry has spoken publicly about his experience with Asperger syndrome. He arrived at a self-diagnosis of the condition after one of his children was evaluated and diagnosed on the autism spectrum, prompting Burry to recognize similar traits in himself, including his capacity for intense focus and his difficulty with social interactions.

Burry lost his left eye to retinoblastoma as a child and has worn a glass eye since that time. He has discussed the impact of this condition on his social development and noted that it contributed to a sense of being an outsider, which he has said informed his willingness to take contrarian positions in financial markets.

Burry is known for being reclusive and media-averse. He has given relatively few interviews over the course of his career and has periodically deleted and reactivated his social media accounts, including his accounts on X. Despite his reluctance to engage with the media, his social media posts — particularly those containing market predictions or criticisms of specific companies — regularly generate significant coverage in the financial press.

He has maintained his medical license in California throughout his investing career.

Recognition

The Big Short

Burry's most significant public recognition came through his portrayal in Michael Lewis's 2010 non-fiction book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. Lewis devoted substantial portions of the book to Burry's story, tracing his path from medical residency to hedge fund management and his central role in identifying the subprime mortgage crisis before it unfolded. The book became a New York Times bestseller and brought Burry's story to a broad audience.

In 2015, the book was adapted into the film The Big Short, directed by Adam McKay. Actor Christian Bale portrayed Burry in the film, depicting his intense research process, his conflicts with investors, and his unconventional personal style, including his habit of working barefoot and playing heavy metal music in his office. Bale received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the role. The film itself won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and was nominated for Best Picture.

Burry was also profiled as part of Bloomberg Television's Risk Takers series, which examined his investment career and the subprime trade in detail.

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

Burry testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), the body established by the U.S. government to investigate the causes of the 2007–2008 financial crisis. In his testimony, Burry described the analytical process that led him to his conclusions about the housing market and the failure of regulators and financial institutions to recognize the risks.

Media and Public Influence

Burry's 13F filings with the SEC are among the most closely watched in the investment world. Each quarterly disclosure generates extensive analysis and commentary in the financial press, with investors and analysts attempting to discern his current market views from his portfolio positions. His social media posts, though often cryptic and frequently deleted, similarly attract widespread attention and are regularly reported on by major financial news outlets.

Legacy

Michael Burry's legacy in the financial world rests primarily on his identification of the subprime mortgage crisis, one of the most consequential financial events of the 21st century. His ability to see the vulnerability in the housing market when the vast majority of financial professionals, regulators, and rating agencies did not has made him a prominent case study in contrarian investing and the importance of independent, fundamental analysis.

His story, as told through The Big Short in both book and film form, has become one of the most well-known narratives of the 2008 financial crisis and has influenced public understanding of the events that led to the Great Recession. The portrayal of Burry as an outsider who saw what insiders could not resonated with broader public frustration with the financial industry in the aftermath of the crisis.

Burry's career has also highlighted the role of individual investors operating outside traditional institutional frameworks. His path from internet message boards to managing a hedge fund that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profits anticipated broader trends in the democratization of financial analysis and information sharing. His approach — rooted in reading primary documents, conducting independent research, and maintaining conviction in the face of consensus disagreement — has been cited as a model for value investors.

His ongoing market commentary, particularly his warnings about technology valuations and the AI sector, ensures that Burry remains a prominent voice in financial discourse. Whether his more recent predictions prove as prescient as his subprime mortgage call remains to be seen, but his track record ensures that his views continue to receive significant attention from both retail and institutional investors.

In a 2010 New York Times opinion piece, Burry wrote: "I saw the crisis coming. Why didn't the Fed?" — a question that encapsulated both his accomplishment and his broader critique of the financial regulatory system.