The Launch
Michael Burry launched a Substack newsletter after deregistering his hedge fund. The "Big Short" investor is capitalizing on the 1.6 million followers he's built on X.
His new publication is titled "Cassandra Unchained." It costs $39 a month or $379 annually. For comparison, Citrini Research charges $125 a month or $999 a year.
The newsletter has amassed more than 23,000 subscribers since going live Sunday night.
The Warning
Burry believes markets are once again deep in bubble territory. He referenced parallels between the late 1990s tech mania and today's rush into AI.
"Feb 21, 2000: SF Chronicle says I'm short Amazon. Greenspan 2005: 'bubble in home prices … does not appear likely.' Powell '25: 'AI companies actually… are profitable… it's a different thing,'" Burry wrote Sunday night on X.
He highlighted then-Fed Chair Alan Greenspan's 2005 insistence that housing showed no bubble signs. That was just two years before the subprime implosion validated Burry's famous "Big Short."
Powell's Echo
Burry noted Fed Chair Jerome Powell has waved off bubble fears. Powell said AI companies are "actually profitable" and "a different thing" from past booms.
"This is different in the sense that these companies, the companies that are so highly valued, actually have earnings and stuff like that," Powell said at an October news conference.
Burry took it as an eerie echo of Greenspan's assurances two decades ago. At the height of the dot-com boom, Burry was publicly short Amazon. Today, he's been openly bearish on Nvidia and Palantir.
Why He Left
Burry says the blog is now his "sole focus." He "left the hedge fund business" after 25 years to "focus on what I've always loved: writing and sharing investment ideas."
Managing clients' money came with restrictions that "muzzled" him. He could only share "cryptic fragments" publicly. Now he is "unchained."
The newsletter promises a "front row seat to his analytical efforts and projections for stocks, markets, and bubbles, often with an eye to history and its remarkably timeless patterns."
The Argument
Burry addressed a common argument about the difference between the dot-com bubble and AI boom. That tech companies 25 years ago were largely unprofitable, while today's are money-printing machines.
At the turn of this century, the Nasdaq was driven by "highly profitable large caps." Those included the "Four Horsemen" — Microsoft, Intel, Dell, and Cisco.
A key issue with the dot-com bubble was "catastrophically overbuilt supply and nowhere near enough demand," Burry writes. "It's just not so different this time, try as so many might do to make it so."
The Targets
Burry calls out the "five public horsemen of today's AI boom" — Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon and Oracle. He also targets "several adolescent startups" including Sam Altman's OpenAI.
Like the dot-com era, investors are extrapolating exponential growth and dismissing profitability concerns. They're funding massive capital expenditures on the assumption technology will rewrite the economy.
The Bottom Line
Burry quit hedge funds to launch a $379/year newsletter warning the AI boom mirrors the dot-com bubble with overbuilt supply and insufficient demand, drawing 23,000 subscribers eager for his unfiltered takes after years of cryptic X posts.
