Michael Burry

Few predicted the real-estate crash; many in the financial world helped blow up the bubble. But Michael Burry saw the danger and figured out a way to bet against it. When the US economy collapsed, he and his investors made nearly a billion dollars shorting the mortgage market with credit default swaps. A central figure in Michael Lewis's best-selling book The Big Short, Michael Burry may be one of the smartest investors of our time.