CSIC 2026: Stephen Schurr Warns About Minsky Moment; Believes OpenAI Will Fail At Attempts To Do The Impossible

At the Capstone Student Investment Conference 2026 (CSIC 2026), Stephen Schurr talked about past and (potential) future crises.

Background on Stephen Schurr

Currently, Senior Managing Director of Fundamental Equities, Stephen Schurr will be heading to Millennium Management for a $100 million pay package (not a typo). Schurr joined BAM in 2021 from Point72, where he worked as am equities’ portfolio manager.  He worked as an investigative journalist for 12 years before going into investing, rising to become one of Wall Street’s most prominent short sellers, having worked early in his career with Jim Chanos at Kynikos Associates. Schurr holds a degree in English literature with American studies from Princeton University.

Also see: Millennium Hires Balyasny Vet Steve Schurr with $100M Compensation

The challenges of investing during bubbles

Schurr said his mind has been turning toward malinvestment and bubbles recently, including the after-effects of them, and how difficult it is to invest during such times. Not someone who looks for end-of-the-world investments, he said he’d rather be long Amazon and short QVC and “just call it a day.”

Editor’s note: See Schurr’s pitch from CSIC 2025, it was one of our most popular articles of the entire year. Balyasny’s Stephen Schurr at CSIC: These Three Popular Shorts Are Better Longs

However, he also noted that sometimes the markets just don’t comply. Thus, to survive as a professional investor, you have to just move forward.

Beware Minsky moments

Bloomberg’s Matt Levine interviewed  Sam Bankman-Fried in 2022; Schurr says notes that the fraudster behind FTX described what sounded like a Ponzi scheme. Levine made the point, and Schurr found it interesting that this was around the time of what was known as the “everything bubble.”