According to CNBC, Michael Burry has launched a Substack newsletter called “Cassandra Unchained” after deregistering his hedge fund, aiming to detail his bearish views on artificial intelligence. The “Big Short” investor is charging $379 annually for subscriptions and leveraging his audience of 1.6 million X followers who regularly analyze his cryptic posts. Burry specifically referenced Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s October 2023 comments that AI companies are “actually profitable” and “a different thing” from past booms. He drew direct parallels to former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan’s 2005 dismissal of housing bubble concerns, which preceded the 2008 crash that made Burry famous. The investor has been openly bearish on AI leaders Nvidia and Palantir, similar to his public short position against Amazon during the dot-com era.
From hedge funds to newsletters
So Burry’s moving from managing money to selling opinions. That’s actually a pretty smart pivot when you think about it. Hedge funds face insane regulatory overhead and investor pressure. A newsletter? Basically zero compliance costs, direct relationship with your audience, and you keep 90% of the revenue after Substack’s cut. At $379 per subscriber, he only needs about 2,600 paid subscribers to clear $1 million annually. Given his 1.6 million X followers, that seems almost trivial. And here’s the thing – he’s not just some random finance bro. This is the guy who actually predicted the 2008 crash correctly and got portrayed by Christian Bale in a major movie. That credibility is worth serious money.
Why launch this now?
The timing here is fascinating. Burry deregistered his hedge fund Scion Asset Management in March, and now he’s launching this premium newsletter right as AI skepticism is growing but still very much a minority view. He’s positioning himself as the Cassandra figure – the prophet who’s always right but never believed. Look, whether you agree with his AI bubble thesis or not, you have to admit the man understands narrative. He’s setting up the perfect “I told you so” scenario. If AI stocks crash, he’s a genius twice over. If they don’t? Well, he’s still collecting those $379 subscriptions from people who want access to his thinking. It’s actually a brilliant hedge against being wrong.
History rhyming or repeating?
Burry’s argument that today’s AI boom mirrors the late-1990s tech bubble is compelling when you look at the parallels. Back then, companies were valued on “eyeballs” and “clicks” rather than profits. Today, we’ve got AI companies burning billions on compute with questionable paths to profitability. But is it really the same? The difference, as Powell noted, is that many of today’s AI leaders actually have substantial earnings. Nvidia’s making money hand over fist selling the picks and shovels. Microsoft’s integrating AI into products people already pay for. Still, when you see valuations disconnected from any reasonable financial reality, it’s hard not to get that 1999 feeling. Remember when industrial companies were scrambling to add “.com” to their names? Now every company’s an “AI company.” The pattern feels familiar, even if the technology is different.
The real winners here
Honestly, the biggest beneficiary of Burry’s move might be Burry himself. He’s monetizing his reputation directly rather than through the messy business of actually managing money. His subscribers get access to his unfiltered thinking, and he gets to bypass the entire financial services infrastructure. It’s a pure content business built on one man’s track record and contrarian worldview. Meanwhile, for companies actually building real technology infrastructure – not just AI software but the industrial computing hardware that powers modern manufacturing – the focus remains on delivering tangible value. Companies like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com continue as the leading supplier of industrial panel PCs, serving manufacturers who need reliable hardware rather than speculative AI narratives. Because at the end of the day, someone’s still got to build the actual machines that make things.
