The Big Short

by

Michael Lewis

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Big Short makes teaching easy.

Michael Burry Character Analysis

Michael Burry is a former Stanford Hospital neurology (and, later, pathology) resident who became the head of Scion Capital, one of the firms that correctly predicted the financial crash and made money from a short position. Burry received initial funding for Scion Capital from the veteran investor Joel Greenblatt (a fan of Burry’s financial blog), and Burry’s investing strategy inspires Greg Lippman, a self-interested trader at Deutsche Bank who also makes a lot of money by shorting the subprime mortgage market. Unlike many of the other protagonists profiled in The Big Short, who generally have a couple of trusted teammates, Burry largely works alone and frequently clashes with his investors. This is how he’s been his whole life—as a child, he often struggled to make friends with other kids. At the time, he blamed his glass eye (which was removed due to childhood cancer), which made him particularly awkward at sports. Later in life, however, an autism diagnosis for his son causes Burry to re-evaluate his own life and self-diagnose as someone on the autism spectrum. Though Burry doesn’t work directly with the people at FrontPoint Partners or Cornwall Capital, his story parallels theirs and follows a similar trajectory: at the beginning, many view him as a delusional outsider but by the end, he has been vindicated and made a lot of money. Perhaps more so than any of the others shorting the subprime market, he faces pushback from within, particularly from investors at Scion (with whom he communicates sporadically and erratically). Though Burry ultimately gets to have the last word with his investors after his investments pay off, he soon quits the financial world and picks up guitar, even though he’d never been interested in it before. This suggests that finance itself was never that important to him—it was more about the goals and purpose that it gave him.

Michael Burry Quotes in The Big Short

The The Big Short quotes below are all either spoken by Michael Burry or refer to Michael Burry. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Outsiders vs. Conformists  Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

A lot of hedge fund managers spend time chitchatting with their investors and treated their quarterly letters to them as a formality. Burry disliked talking to people face-to-face and thought of these letters as the single most important thing he did to let his investors know what he was up to. In his quarterly letters he coined a phrase to describe what he thought was happening: “the extension of credit by instrument.” That is, a lot of people couldn’t actually afford to pay their mortgages the old-fashioned way, and so the lenders were dreaming up new instruments to justify handing them new money.

Related Characters: Michael Lewis (speaker), Michael Burry
Related Symbols: Bonds
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

He sensed that he was different from other people before he understood why.

Related Characters: Michael Lewis (speaker), Michael Burry
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Now, in February 2007, subprime loans were defaulting in record numbers, financial institutions were less steady every day, and no one but him seemed to recall what he’d said and done. He had told his investors that they might need to be patient—that the bet might not pay off until the mortgages issued in 2005 reached the end of their teaser rate period. They had not been patient. Many of his investors mistrusted him, and he in turn felt betrayed by them.

Related Characters: Michael Lewis (speaker), Michael Burry
Related Symbols: Bonds
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:

After a few pages, Michael Burry realized that he was no longer reading about his son but about himself. “How many people can pick up a book and find an instruction manual for their life?” he said. “I hated reading a book telling me who I was. I thought I was different, but this was saying I was the same as other people. My wife and I were a typical Asperger’s couple, and we had an Asperger’s son.”

Related Characters: Michael Lewis (speaker), Michael Burry (speaker)
Page Number: 182
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

Howie Hubler had grown up in New Jersey and played football at Montclair State College. Everyone who met him noticed his thick football neck and his great huge head and his overbearing manner, which was interpreted as both admirably direct and a mask. He was loud and headstrong and bullying.

Related Characters: Michael Lewis (speaker), Michael Burry, Howie Hubler
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Big Short PDF

Michael Burry Quotes in The Big Short

The The Big Short quotes below are all either spoken by Michael Burry or refer to Michael Burry. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Outsiders vs. Conformists  Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

A lot of hedge fund managers spend time chitchatting with their investors and treated their quarterly letters to them as a formality. Burry disliked talking to people face-to-face and thought of these letters as the single most important thing he did to let his investors know what he was up to. In his quarterly letters he coined a phrase to describe what he thought was happening: “the extension of credit by instrument.” That is, a lot of people couldn’t actually afford to pay their mortgages the old-fashioned way, and so the lenders were dreaming up new instruments to justify handing them new money.

Related Characters: Michael Lewis (speaker), Michael Burry
Related Symbols: Bonds
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

He sensed that he was different from other people before he understood why.

Related Characters: Michael Lewis (speaker), Michael Burry
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Now, in February 2007, subprime loans were defaulting in record numbers, financial institutions were less steady every day, and no one but him seemed to recall what he’d said and done. He had told his investors that they might need to be patient—that the bet might not pay off until the mortgages issued in 2005 reached the end of their teaser rate period. They had not been patient. Many of his investors mistrusted him, and he in turn felt betrayed by them.

Related Characters: Michael Lewis (speaker), Michael Burry
Related Symbols: Bonds
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:

After a few pages, Michael Burry realized that he was no longer reading about his son but about himself. “How many people can pick up a book and find an instruction manual for their life?” he said. “I hated reading a book telling me who I was. I thought I was different, but this was saying I was the same as other people. My wife and I were a typical Asperger’s couple, and we had an Asperger’s son.”

Related Characters: Michael Lewis (speaker), Michael Burry (speaker)
Page Number: 182
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

Howie Hubler had grown up in New Jersey and played football at Montclair State College. Everyone who met him noticed his thick football neck and his great huge head and his overbearing manner, which was interpreted as both admirably direct and a mask. He was loud and headstrong and bullying.

Related Characters: Michael Lewis (speaker), Michael Burry, Howie Hubler
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis: