2015 was not a very good year for hedge fund managers, but before the sympathy kicks in, remember that those who made Institutional Investor’s Hedge Fund Rich List had a median income of USD 275 mn during the year. “Nearly half of hedge funds lost money, according to Institutional Investor, and some familiar names on the Rich Lists of years past were missing, including John Paulson of Paulson and Co., Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors, and Daniel Loeb at Third Point,” CNBC reports. Those who made this year’s rich list had an average income of USD 517.6 mn, a “slight uptick” from last year, but down 40% from 2013. “To be considered for inclusion on the list, managers had to make [USD 135 mn], the lowest since 2011.” According the list, compiled by Institutional Investor’s Alpha, Renaissance Capital’s James Simons and Citadel’s Ken Griffin topped the list, racking USD 1.7 bn each. The other three making the top five: Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio, Appaloosa’s David Tepper, and Millennium’s Israel Englander also made over USD 1 bn each. Most significantly, this year shows the strong grip computer strategies are starting to have over the industry: half of the 25 highest earners on the list used computer strategies, including six of the top eight. David Siegel, co-chairman of Two Sigma, who shared seventh place on the list with his other co-chairman John Overdeck (USD 500 mn each), predicted this. Siegel told the Financial Times’s Robin Wigglesworth in January: “The challenge facing the investment world is that the human mind has not become any better than it was 100 years ago, and it’s very hard for someone using traditional methods to juggle all the information of the global economy in their head.”