Michael Burry has a new short-selling partner. Who is Lakshmi Ganapathi?

Popular American investor Michael Burry, famous for correctly predicting the 2008 housing bubble and now voicing concerns over the AI frenzy, is joining Minerva Investment Management as a senior adviser, where he will work alongside Unicus founder and CEO Lakshmi Ganapathi.

Burry announced the career move in a post on X and wrote, “Happy to announce that I have taken a role as Senior Advisor to Minerva Investment Management, led by Lakshmi Ganapathi and her global team at Unicus Research.” The American investor will work with Ganapathi to launch their new short-biased investment fund.

“Unicus has built a formidable global reputation with hard-hitting credit analysis. I will enjoy my front row seat as Laks and her team break new ground with their short-biased investment fund,” he wrote in a post on X.


This comes after Burry shut down his hedge fund, Scion Asset Management, in late 2025. He now shares his investment ideas through a paid Substack newsletter focused on financial markets under the pseudonym “Cassandra Unchained”, which he says was given to him by legendary investor Warren Buffett.

Who is Lakshmi Ganapathi?

Lakshmi Ganapathi runs long/short investment research firm Unicus, and manages a team of investment and geopolitical experts worldwide. Her firm Unicus aimed at providing short ideas and research at its inception in 2020. In a social media post last week, Ganapathi said her firm received multiple requests from several investors and allocators to start a hedge fund over the past year.

“This month, we are launching a short-biased fund. We have received multiple interests from the institutional investor base. We are also thrilled to announce that Dr Michael Burry is onboard as a senior advisor to our fund, Minerva Investment Management LLC,” she wrote.

Lakshmi Ganapathi earned two Bachelor’s degrees focusing on commerce and accounting from domestic and international universities. She completed her MBA in 2015, graduating magna cum laude from the University of Connecticut. She then joined Alternative Research Services, which she left in 2019 as a senior short-selling analyst. She later founded Unicus Research in May 2020.

Also read |Michael Burry pulls back on risk, says he’s happy to sit on cash. Is Big Short investor reversing his bearish AI bets?

Michael Burry hints AI will make rich richer

Michael Burry has recently been vocal about his warnings over the excessive optimism over artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, Burry wrote on a Substack post that he sees many indicators, both technical and fundamental, lining up for the same conclusion as the Dotcom crash. "1999 went where no market had gone before, and I would say so can this one...It is already there on a number of indicators," he said, arguing that massive venture capital flows, rising AI debt issuance, and extreme market optimism are creating conditions where valuations may detach from economic reality.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Burry wrote, “I am righteously indignant over the wealth transfer to the very few that these bubbles create. The whole system is about creating bubbles so the grift can happen, both inside companies, transferring wealth to their employees at obscene rates, and in politics, as we see all over."

Michael Burry’s 2008 prediction

Just before than 2008 financial collapse, people believed that the US housing market was secure and booming, and that home prices would not fall. Banks increasingly issued subprime loans, riskier mortgages were given to borrowers with weaker credit, under the assumption that rising prices would shield them from losses. Despite the misplaced optimism, Burry voiced his opinion that the market was on the brink of collapse, which most people did not believe.

After tirelessly studying mortgage securities, he concluded that subprime loans would collapse by 2007, taking down the broader economy with them. In 2005 and 2006, he warned his clients in letters that the meltdown was coming — but almost no one believed him.

Against all odds, Burry bought credit default swaps against subprime mortgage securities, effectively betting that the market would crash. As premiums mounted, investors grew furious and demanded withdrawals, forcing Burry to restrict redemptions in his fund in order to hold the positions.

The backlash was so intense that it nearly destroyed his firm — until the market finally collapsed exactly as he predicted. Burry made around $100 million personally and $725 million for investors when the housing market finally collapsed.

Burry’s popular bet against the housing market was depicted in the 2015 movie titled 'The Big Short', which starred Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell and others.

Also read | Michael Burry revives AI warnings, Big Short investor says 'You could have heard it first'

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