[hugh3]

Not really on the same scale. If you're a hedge fund, the most you can make in a year is some small percentage of your total assets under management, so you need to persuade people to give you billions (at least hundreds of millions) before you can start raking in the kind of dough that pays salaries.

[gaius]

That's what leverage is for (and if it goes wrong you end up like LTCM).