Take, for instance, his biggest criticism of the industry. “There are a million things you can say that our industry doesn’t much do that most other industries do, and it leads to a mindset that I think of as rubbish—that you have to be either a distributor or a manufacturer.” Fisher’s experience over time has led him to believe that when you separate manufacturing from distribution, “you give up quality control of the other side. So if you want to be a totally quality control guy, you can’t do it.”

 
Fisher is obviously that “totally quality control” kind of guy. “If you’re just going to be a manufacturer, you give up control of who your client base is; if you’re just a distributor, you really have no control of the product.” He admits that the potential for a conflict of interest exists when a firm both manufactures and distributes, but argues that as long as you fully disclose that you just “sell your own product only, and everyone knows what you’re doing,” then you can go ahead. In fact, he thinks that the rest of the industry’s separation of the two arms of investing “is something that I’ve found to be an attractive, kind of contrarian play,” that provides him with an advantage over his competition, especially in light of his “Three Questions” approach (see sidebar, below). Fisher says he “doesn’t want some distributor to say to me, ‘You have to take on this client and put up with him, or I’ll jerk my other clients away from you.’”