Michael Burry - Wikipedia

American hedge fund manager (born 1971)

Michael Burry
Born	Michael James Burry (1971-06-19) June 19, 1971 (age 54)San Jose, California, U.S.[1]
Education	University of California, Los Angeles (BA)Vanderbilt University (MD)
Occupations	Investor hedge fund manager
Known for	Founding and managing Scion Asset Management

Michael James Burry (/ˈbɜːri/; born June 19, 1971)[2] is an American investor and hedge fund manager. He founded the hedge fund Scion Capital, which later went by the name Scion Asset Management. In 2025, Burry announced he was shutting down Scion Asset Management.

He is best known for being among the first investors to predict and profit from the subprime mortgage crisis.

Early life and education

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Burry was born and raised in San Jose, California. At the age of two he lost his left eye to retinoblastoma[3] and has had a prosthetic eye ever since.[4] As a teenager, he attended the public Santa Teresa High School.[5][6]

He studied economics and pre-med at the University of California, Los Angeles, and earned an MD degree from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1997.[7] After graduating, he would partially complete his residency[8] in neurology at Stanford University Medical Center.[9] While off duty, he spent time working on his hobby: financial investing.[9]

Despite not practicing, Burry has kept his license as a physician active with the Medical Board of California, including continuing education requirements.[10][8]

Investment career

[edit] Main article: Scion Asset Management

After medical school, Burry worked as a Stanford Hospital neurology resident, and then a Stanford Hospital pathology resident, however he completed neither residency.

He then left to start his own hedge fund. He had already developed a reputation as an investor by demonstrating success in value investing, which he wrote about on message boards on the stock discussion site Silicon Investor beginning in 1996. He was so successful with his stock picks that he attracted the interest of companies such as Vanguard, White Mountains Insurance Group and prominent investors such as Joel Greenblatt. Burry has a strictly traditional understanding of value. He has said more than once that his investment style is built upon Benjamin Graham and David Dodd’s 1934 book Security Analysis: "All my stock picking is 100% based on the concept of a margin of safety."[11]

Burry was reported as taking a short position in Amazon on February 21, 2000 in the SF Chronicle which he touted in 2025 when announcing a newsletter to layout his AI bubble fears.[12] Amazon would lose about 80-percent of its value over the next year amid the dot com bubble. After shutting down his website in November 2000, Burry started the hedge fund Scion Capital, funded by an inheritance and loans from his family. He named it after Terry Brooks' The Scions of Shannara (1990), one of his favorite novels. He quickly earned extraordinary profits for his investors.[13]

In 2005, Burry started to focus on the subprime market. Through his analysis of mortgage lending practices in 2003 and 2004, he correctly predicted that the real estate bubble would collapse as early as 2007. His research on the values of residential real estate convinced him that subprime mortgages, especially those with "teaser" rates, and the bonds based on these mortgages, would begin losing value when the original rates were replaced by much higher rates, often in as little as two years after initiation. This conclusion led him to short the market by persuading Goldman Sachs and other investment firms to sell him credit default swaps against subprime deals he saw as vulnerable.[14][15][16]

During his payments toward the credit default swaps, Burry suffered an investor revolt, where some investors in his fund worried his predictions were inaccurate and demanded to withdraw their capital. Eventually, Burry's analysis proved correct: He made a personal profit of $100 million and a profit for his remaining investors of more than $700 million.[7]

In 2008, following the investor revolt and his subsequent financial victory, Burry shut down Scion Capital.[17]

In an April 3, 2010 op-ed for The New York Times, Burry argued that anyone who studied the financial markets carefully in 2003, 2004, and 2005 could have recognized the growing risk in the subprime markets.[18] He faulted federal regulators for failing to listen to warnings from outside a closed circle of advisors.[18][16]

In 2013, Burry reopened the Scion hedge fund under the name Scion Asset Management. Its aim was to generate personal investments, which include water, farmland, and gold.[19]

In 2025, Burry's 13-F[20] filings revealed short positions in Nvidia and Palantir, in the forms of Put options, another position contrary to general market consensus. This sparked public interest online, as he was once again taking a short, opposing position, to the general market. Burry also posted on X,[21] alluding to the idea of an "AI Bubble." In further filings, Burry has withdrawn Scion Asset Management from the SEC's registration, effectively closing down his fund.[22]

In late 2025, Burry deregistered his hedge fund, Scion Asset Management. In a post on X in late November, Burry said "On to much better things Nov 25th" and the SEC database showed Scion's registration status as terminated.[23] On November 24, 2025 he would announce a newsletter with a $379 annual fee which will layout his fears about an AI bubble related to his short positions in Nvidia and Palantir. [24]

Personal life

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Burry is married and lived in Saratoga, California, in 2010 with his two adult sons,[9] one of whom was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Burry believes he also has Asperger’s after reading about the condition.[9][25][7]

Burry was highly critical of the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.[26]

In popular culture

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Film

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• Burry is portrayed by Christian Bale in the 2015 film The Big Short.[27]

Literature

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• 2010: Michael Lewis, The Big Short
• 2009: Gregory Zuckerman, The Greatest Trade Ever

References

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1. ^ Szramiakje, John (May 22, 2017). "Here's the story of one of the heroes of 'The Big Short'". Business Insider. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
2. ^ Lang, Kevin (December 11, 2015). "The True Story Behind The Big Short - Real Michael Burry". History vs Hollywood. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
3. ^ Gregory Zuckerman (2009). The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of how John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History. New York: Broadway Books. p. 73. ISBN 978-0385529938.
4. ^ "The True Story Behind The Big Short - Real Michael Burry". History vs Hollywood. Retrieved April 23, 2019.
5. ^ Lewis, Michael (1 March 2010). "Betting on the Blind Side". Vanity Fair. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
6. ^ Carey, Pete (April 6, 2008). "Mercury News Interview: Hedge fund manager saw subprime meltdown coming". San Jose Mercury News. San Jose, California. Retrieved February 18, 2016.
7. ^ a b c Lewis, Michael (1 March 2010). "Betting on the Blind Side". Vanity Fair. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
8. ^ a b Whitney, Kathy (2014). "These Doctors Mean Business". Vanderbilt Medicine. Retrieved August 18, 2023.
9. ^ a b c d Lewis, Michael (2010). The Big Short. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-07223-5.
10. ^ "Licensing details for: A 68709". California Department of Consumer Affairs. Retrieved 2025-01-21.
11. ^ "Learning From Dr. Michael Burry's Investment Philosophy". ValueWalk. December 20, 2016. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
12. ^ LI, Yun. "Michael Burry launches newsletter to lay out his AI bubble views after deregistering hedge fund". CNBC.com. CNBC. Retrieved 24 November 2025.
13. ^ "Michael Burry life story". Business Insider. Retrieved April 23, 2019.
14. ^ Anderson, Jenny (March 9, 2007). "Winners amid gloom of defaults". The New York Times.
15. ^ Kakutani, Michiko (March 15, 2010). "Investors Who Foresaw the Meltdown". The New York Times.
16. ^ a b "Michael Burry Profiled: Bloomberg Risk Takers". Bloomberg Businessweek. July 20, 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-08-04.
17. ^ Little, Sarah (August 29, 2023). "What Happened To Michael Burry After The Big Short In Real Life". ScreenRant. Retrieved April 9, 2025.
18. ^ a b Burry, Michael J. (April 3, 2010). "I Saw the Crisis Coming. Why Didn't the Fed?". The New York Times.
19. ^ Little, Sarah (August 29, 2023). "What Happened To Michael Burry After The Big Short In Real Life". ScreenRant. Retrieved April 9, 2025.
20. ^ "SEC FORM 13F-HR". www.sec.gov. Retrieved 2025-11-08.
21. ^ Burry, Michael [@michaeljburry] (2025-10-31). "Sometimes, we see bubbles. Sometimes, there is something to do about it. Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
22. ^ Burry, Michael [@michaeljburry] (2025-11-13). "So, I bought 50,000 of these things for $1.84. Each of those things is 100 doodads. So I spent $9,200,000, Not $912,000,000. @CNBC @WSJ @FT Each of those doodads let me sell $PLTR at $50 in 2027. That was done last month. On to much better things Nov 25th" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
23. ^ "Michael Burry of 'Big Short' fame deregisters Scion Asset Management". CNBC. 2025-11-13. Retrieved 2025-11-14.
24. ^ Li, Yun. "Michael Burry launches newsletter to lay out his AI bubble views after deregistering hedge fund". cnbc.com. CNBC. Retrieved 24 November 2025.
25. ^ "Author Michael Lewis on Wall Street's Delusion". 60 Minutes. March 14, 2010.
26. ^ Stevenson, Reed (April 7, 2020). "'Criminally unjust:' 'Big Short' investor who called subprime mortgage collapse slams coronavirus lockdowns". Fortune. Retrieved 2021-05-20.
27. ^ Brayson, Johnny (January 5, 2016). "Where 'The Big Short's Michael Burry Is Today". Bustle.com. Retrieved July 22, 2018.

External links

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• "Michael Burry: Subprime Short-Seller No. 1," , The New York Times, March 1, 2010
• "Betting on the Blind Side" Excerpt from "The Big Short"
• "Michael Burry’s FCIC Testimony – Audio", FCIC Staff Audiotape of Interview with Michael Burry
• "Scion Asset Management - Homepage"
• "Scion Asset Management - Quarterly Holdings Reports"