The main reason his scheme works is he has all these street people working for him at slave labor rates. Plus they must all be low intelligence on par with someone like say UNKewlJ, to not just figure out that they would be better off just doing whatever is going on by themselves. Obviously not one has even saved up enough bankroll to pull off the scheme on his own.
Also some probably noticed that the schemes don't even always work, sometimes lose money, so figured, I'll leave the headache to DarkOz and just drink my Hennessy and collect what the man gives me.
I don't do things any differently - because the capital needed for a given business and brains all derive from me, I don't pay the people who work for me anything on par with full partnership. But I don't pay them slave labor rates either.