<prompt> Human: And guess what? Buffett put his money into Vanguard Admiral shares.  <response>: There seem to be a lot of things being said in this thread that are not true: - Hedge fund doesnt mean one specific class if thing, but is essentially the None of the above of the financial world. Hedge funds execute drastically different strategies: Some study global economic data and try to understand what economies do and to benefit from them getting better or them getting worse, some study companies and try to pick good stocks, some find opportunities where people one place are selling something cheaper in one venue than someone is willing to buy it in another venue, some use computers to predict the future, etc. Strategically, they arent at all similar. - Alpha matters. It is being overstated the degree to which diversity provided by hedge funds is important. Yes, a benefit of many not all hedge funds is that they provide not-too-high correlation to markets, but at the end of the day, most are selling goals of high returns. It is unfair to portray the hedge fund industry as existing primarily for beta reasons. Indeed, there are other hedges which are probably cheaper if you dont hope a fund has an edge. You only have to look at the volatility numbers to see that most are choosing their leverage levels to keep risk at least somewhat high. - Im not dead yet! The last crisis what a rough one for the financial services industry, but the reports of the death of hedge funds is greatly exaggerated. There has been some level of bounceback since then, and they were never anywhere near gone. 