Meet the 8 hedge fund managers who made the most money in 2016

It's no secret that hedge funds have not been doing well.

2016 was an especially rough year for the once mighty kings of Wall Street.

High fees and lackluster returns have forced many investors to pull their money out of hedge funds. The $3 trillion industry shrunk by about $70 billion last year, the biggest drop since 2009, according to data tracker HFR.

But that doesn't mean that hedge fund managers, long known to be some of the wealthiest people on Wall Street, are on their way to the poor house.

Forbes has just released its list of the highest-earning hedge fund managers and traders of 2016. And it shows that top hedge funders are doing just fine when it comes to their take home pay.

In fact, the top managers pulled in fortunes, despite the fact that several of them - at least four of the top eight earners - failed to beat the S&P 500 last year, which investors can buy for close to free. (The losing funds were run by billionaires Ray Dalio, Dan Loeb, Ken Griffin and David Tepper. The S&P 500 returned 9.5% in 2016.)

Forbes identifies the earnings of each listee as well as insights about the firm's performance and background.

We've included the top eight hedge funders from the list. As a group, they earned more than $6.8 billion. The firms they founded or run manage a combined $400 plus billion.