Philip A. Fisher

Biography

After training as an analyst in a San Francisco bank, Philip Fisher started his own investment advisory business in 1931. He has always specialized in the type of firm for which California is best known: innovative technology companies driven by research and development. But he began almost 40 years before the name Silicon Valley was even thought of.

The firms he bought for his clients then were relatively low-tech, such as Dow Chemical or Food Machinery Corporation. Later on, he was one of the first professional investors to recognize the merits of hi-tech firms like Motorola and Texas Instruments when they were starting out. His most famous investment was his purchase of Motorola (NYSE: MOT), a company he bought in 1955 when it was a radio manufacturer and held until his death

In his nineties, he was still working in the same way he has always done. He was an extremely logical and methodical man, who only selects companies for purchase after a painstaking process of trawling through trade literature and interviewing managers and competitors. But he also had an unconventional and contrarian turn of mind, which helped him to spot value before the crowd.

He passed away in March 2004, at the age of 96.