Photo by Victor Alcorn

Well, live and learn.

John Paulson, the hedge fund manager whose personal profit betting on the collapse of the subprime market was nearly $4 billion, had largely shunned the media. Oh, his name rang out, sure, and there were newspaper op-eds, but he'd never done a television interview, had managed to keep a low-enough profile that he wasn't recognized in the street.

“I avoid the media,” Mr. Paulson told Sheelah Kolhatkar for the cover story of this week's Bloomberg Businessweek. “I’m not sure that actually helps me. Not participating might make the media more interested.”

Of course, it may be that the tremendous gains Mr. Paulson recorded through the subprime crisis, followed by the noteworthy losses last year, are what have attracted so much attention, but, well, that's just a theory. Mr. Paulson has remained committed to the strategies that lost his two largest funds 36 percent and 52 percent last year. On the other hand, he may wish to revise his new accessibility gambit.

You know, after seeing this: