The “Big Short” investor Michael Burry is jumping into the business of life advice.
Earlier this month, an unidentified user on X tagged Burry and asked a straightforward question: “Life advice for a 26-year-old?” Less than two hours later, Burry wrote back with a list of ten pieces of advice offering guidance for an economy where it’s getting harder for young Americans to jumpstart their careers.
Among them: Constant exercise, avoiding gambling, and being thankful to everyone.
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Burry is most famous for correctly spotting a brewing bubble in the American housing market that eventually led to the 2008 financial crisis. Banks had loosened eligibility requirements for home loans offered to subprime borrowers in the early 2000s and later repackaged them as mortgage-backed securities for Wall Street firms to buy.
Once the mortgage market crumbled in 2007, it didn’t take long for the chaos to spread into financial markets.
Burry has since developed a reputation as a contrarian and bet against specific companies heavily involved in the AI boom such as Nvidia and Palantir, along with
chipmakers Micron and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
Burry’s straightforward life advice
The following is Burry’s entire list of advice posted in an Oct. 17 response on X:
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Never stop exercising or learning.
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Accept compromise to begin relationships.
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Manifest the power of compounding.
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Never gamble.
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Have kids and be a good parent
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If it flies or floats, rent it.
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Buy half the house you can afford.
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Art in the eye of the beholder is cheap.
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Be thankful for and to all.
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Be charitable.
Other plainspoken advice with differing receptions
Burry’s advice extolling prudency and good character overlaps with other counsel offered in the finance industry over the years.
Take legendary investor Warren Buffett, who authored an annual letter to shareholders of investment firm Berkshire Hathaway for about six decades that set a standard for plain-spoken corporate communication on financial successes, mistakes and everything else in between.
