Stockpickr: The Top 10 Hedge Fund Managers

10. David Shaw, D.E. Shaw

David Shaw weighs in at No. 10 with a personal income of $600 million to $700 million last year. His D.E. Shaw is a notoriously secretive quant firm. A few years ago, I met a guy who had traded there and who'd sat right by Jeff Bezos, before the days of Amazon(AMZN Quote). He threw a few dollars to invest in Bezos' crazy idea when Bezos took off for Seattle to launch Amazon.

Now, several hundred million dollars later, this guy no longer has to trade, but he described to me how exciting it was for him to look at the stats page each day for Amazon and see how quickly the company -- and his investment -- was growing. I'm almost more jealous of that feeling than any of the egregious incomes on this list.

On another note, I spoke yesterday with someone at a fund of funds invested in D.E. Shaw who told me that whenever that fund's management visits the D.E. Shaw offices, it is told absolutely zero about what the investment strategy is.

That said, D.E. Shaw is required to file a list of its holdings every quarter. We keep track of the holdings, which seldom change (implying they are long-term investments), at the D.E. Shaw portfolio page on Stockpickr.