It's hard to sustain strong performance year after year. Especially in a market as tough as last year's. But John Paulson has done it again. Paulson, best known for betting against mortgage securities, earned $2 billion in 2008, according to estimates by Alpha. He earned even more the previous year, $3 billion.

He wasn't the big winner in 2008. The title goes to Jim Simons, who runs Renaissance Technologies; he made $2.5 billion. Thirty-four year old John Arnold ($1.5 billion), George Soros ($1.1 billion) and Raymond Dalio ($780 million) round out the top five. The top 25 managers made an average of $464 million. That's down from $892 million in 2007. Stay tuned for the biggest money losers in the hedge fund industry. 

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