---
title: Do You Have to Be Unethical to Get Really Rich?
description: Author and economist Sam Wilkin compares robber barons of old to today's hedge funds.
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published: '2015-09-24T15:05:41.000Z'
modified: '2015-09-24T15:05:41.000Z'
section: Personal Finance
tags:
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  - robber barons
  - sam wilkin
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![Screen Shot 2015-09-23 at 5.16.26 PM](https://img.money.com/2015/09/screen-shot-2015-09-23-at-5-16-26-pm.png)

Hedge funds are the modern, ethical billionaires, says author and economist Sam Wilkin. "The hedge fund sector as a whole consistently underperforms the market," said Wilkin. That means, the good ones, or the lucky ones, are winning. There are a lot of hedge fund managers who fail. The problem is "a lot of the strategies people pursue are somewhat questionable, but often the ethics aren't as clear-cut as you would expect." Think about Carlos Slim, who had a monopoly on telecoms in Mexico; Wilkin says people like to think he did something unethical or wrong to get that monopoly, but the Mexican government was desperate to raise money from privatization.

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