> I'd guess most of my friends who are professional investors are the same
I'm curious about this. Hedge fund guys make enough to be accredited investors, but they mostly don't invest in them? Are the minimums too high? Are the yields not that great? I know the 2010's weren't great years for hedge funds. I also halfway wonder if the real product hedge funds sell is complex strategies to pension fund manages who think it's hard to explain their job if they're just buying index funds.
It's a good question. I can only speak for myself but I would only be interested in investing in a very small number of funds and they don't want my money (or sometimes anyone's money). Unless you are convinced a fund adds value after fees it's very hard to justify when you can construct your desired market exposure with passive products which are much cheaper and more liquid. It's painfully boring to do that so like everyone else I'm tempted to punt on sexier things every now and again but most of the time I don't.
To answer your last point, there's some of that for sure - in many parts of finance complexity is good for margins. And yes it's tough to demonstrate much value if your investing process amounts to placing buy orders for index funds. It's not all bad incentives though, hedge funds can offer uncorrelated (to the wider market) returns which are very valuable in a portfolio.
I'm curious about this. Hedge fund guys make enough to be accredited investors, but they mostly don't invest in them? Are the minimums too high? Are the yields not that great? I know the 2010's weren't great years for hedge funds. I also halfway wonder if the real product hedge funds sell is complex strategies to pension fund manages who think it's hard to explain their job if they're just buying index funds.