What’s Next For ASML?

See the video below:

I recently returned from a two week trip to Europe for IMEC’s ITF World 2024. It was a wonderful whirlwind of a journey and had a great time. I received a great deal of ideas for videos and will be working on them over the next few weeks. The trip had many upsides - sorry I didn’t organize any meetups as I was too tired - but the highlight was undoubtedly this trip to ASML.

I recently had the opportunity to visit ASML's headquarters in the small village of Veldhoven in the Netherlands.

It was a wonderful experience. I learned a lot about the company's history, culture, and more.

And I was honored to have the rare opportunity to see the $300 million or whatever High-NA EUV tool. I call it the Beast.

So in this short video, just a few random thoughts on seeing ASML in the flesh.

Eindhoven

My hotel was in Eindhoven, which is short ways near Veldhoven.

The town is quite nice, albeit rather slow-paced. By the way. For what it is worth, I paid my own way including transportation and hotel stay. And ASML did not sponsor this video.

Eindhoven will forever be known as the home of Philips, the once-massive consumer electronics tech giant.

They first built the lithography machine technology and later spun off ASML as a joint venture with ASM International.

They were also TSMC's cornerstone foreign investor, owning 28% of the company at the start and 36% later on.

Philips later sold off all the shares they got from both those efforts. As of this writing, the two companies have a combined market capitalization of $1 trillion. Would have been nice to have those stakes now.

But such is life. Investment managers in the mid-1990s were pressuring Philips to sell those stakes to "unlock" shareholder value.

ASML in Veldhoven

Over the past five years, ASML has grown incredibly fast in almost every possible way.

For instance, the stock has gone nuts - to the utter surprise of virtually everyone who has ever worked at the company.

The company has gained a huge and unexpected new following in the popular consciousness. That includes a great deal of people who believe that the company's products make chips right out of the box like a pasta machine. Not the case, by the way.

And then headcount. Today the company has ...