Hi everyone, I'm Nicola Tangyan, the CEO of the Norwegian Song of Wealth Fund. And today we are honored to welcome Christoph Fokke, the CEO of ASML. Now ASML is the most important company many of you have never heard about. It produces the equipment that actually makes the computer chips and it's basically the progress here which drives and decides the speed of the progress in health, electrical vehicles, communication, weapons, pretty much everything we do. So I consider Christoph one of the most important people in the world and just now. One welcome.
Thank you very much, Nicola. It's a very great pleasure to be with you today and very much looking forward to a great discussion about this great industry. And we are very proud shareholders as well. We own 2.6% of the company equivalent to $7 billion, so it's very important for us. Now Christoph, if we kick off air, what do you actually produce? Well, what we produce in ASML are lithography system. Lithography system basically is a very important system in the entire semiconductor process because this is a system that is going to print the image of the electronic circuit you want to get on a chip. So if you want printing whatever our customer wants to realize.
So this is what we have been doing for the last 40 years, pretty much. Now you are the only EUV, lithography printer in the world. Now in one minute, what is EUV? So EUV refers to the light, the type of light we are using basically on those lithography machine. EUV means extraotivolite and this is a very, very short wavelength. We are talking about 13.5 nanometers. So you look at a very, very small wavelength. And in lithography, the smaller the wavelengths, the smaller the feature you can print. So EUV is the light.
And the reason why a lot of people talk about EUV is because being able to create that light in sufficient amount to industrialize a tool with it has been a challenge of many, many years. Why is it so difficult? What part of it is difficult? Well, two parts are difficult. The first one is the light generation, what we call the source. You could see that if you want as the light bulb, if you have in your house, that creates basically the energy you need to expose basically an offer. And creating EUV light in the eye of power has been a very, very big headache for many people and for many, many years. And in SML, we spent more than 20 years achieving basically 200 watt, which was, we thought, the first threshold to make EUV economically viable.
Now, I'll tell you how we do that because it will also explain a bit the complexity. So in order to create EUV light today on the EUV machine, we have to hit a tin droplet. So it's a very, very small droplet of material with a very high powerful CO2 laser. And when we hit that droplet basically with a very high powerful laser, electrons start to go from one place to the other. And as they do so, you have the EUV light creation. Now, to give you an idea, we hit a droplet 50,000 times per second. And to be honest, I was simply if I say a bit, we don't hit the droplet once. We hit it three times, 50,000 times per seconds. The first time to make the droplet bigger, the second time to make it look a bit like a gas and the third one to really get the EUV light out. And of course, being able to create that technology, to be able to control that technology, is a major major challenge. That's what ASML spent about 20 years of R&D doing a few years ago.
And you are pretty much the only company which does this in the world? Well, yes, we are the only company who can do it, I will say, in a way that can be industrialized. You have a lot of, of course, research center that can create EUV light, but not in this amount and not, I will say, so systematically. I read somewhere that your latest machine is the size, I mean, it's not exactly pocket size, it's the size of a double deck of bus. That's right, that's right.
And I saw somewhere that to transport these one machine, you needed seven planes and 50 trucks. Yeah, it's all correct. And the size of the tool is related to the second because the challenge we have on UV, which is the optic itself. Because once you have the light, you need to be able to guide the light first to the reticle, to take the image you want to print on the wafer and then to the wafer to print it. And in order to do that, you need to walk in vacuum, you need to develop very complex material, I won't share what they are for obvious reason.
And that's also something that together with Zeiss, our partner this time, we also spend many, many years to bring together. So you could see UV as a double challenge, the source and the optic and the rest, you know, you could say is pretty much looking like a normal scanner. So you basically need this to make the chip smaller and smaller and which kind of brings us to more slow. What just briefly, could you explain more slow? Well, I think you have many, many version of more slow. If you listen to people, and that's one of the reasons some people tell you more slow is dead or has died already many years ago. The version of more slow I like is the one that said that you have to double the density of transistor on a chip every two years. And that's a load that have been executed and is still being executed. It's something that logic customers are doing, company like Intel, TSMC, Samsung. It's also a load that DRAM customers are following. And that need to double the transistor density every two years is key basically to deliver performance, to deliver to the AI, for example. We have AI today because we have gone far enough on more slow so that we have enough basically computing power to start to train the type of model AI is looking at. And how much longer can this development continue to think?
So here if you look at in fact that low recently this has in fact accelerated because AI has demanded even more. So if you look at AI, people who do AI, they don't want to double the density of transistor every two years, right now they want to multiply it by a factor of 16 every two years. So this is a type of new low you're looking at when it comes to computing performance, high computing performance for AI. So you see in fact in this case a strong acceleration of the performance need and demand. So you could say it's getting of course maybe harder over time to get this density. But so far people have been creative enough to keep going and I think we continue to see that.
So the question when does it stop? I could say never if I'm a bit less bullish I will say won't stop at least for another 20 years and we'll see after that. But I think this is still a long term enough view. So I think we believe that the level of creativity in this industry far beyond just the XML by the way is such that we would keep going for quite a long time. I'm sorry just to get that straight. You think you can increase complexity by 60 in times every two years for the next 20 years? Well this is what our AI people want, right? This is what the AI company wants. Now the problem with that today is that if we were to go on this pass cost is an issue and as you know of course energy consumption is an issue. So that demand has to be I would say fulfilled through major innovation in our industry. Major innovation in logic, you know again Intel, TSMC Long Samsung in memory. So you hear a lot about high bandwidth memory today. But also major innovation in our domain in lithography to continue to basically enable our customer to get that type of density.
This is why you talked about our latest equipment before but this is why we continue basically to innovate and bring basically the ability to get more and more transistor per unit area with better lithography machine. How far into the future can you see? Well usually we have a good view of the next five years. I think I would say the five years coming I would call it the plan. I think we have a pretty good idea of what could happen in the next 10 years, maybe 15 years but then you start to look at scenarios. So you know there's many options to get there and after that it's a bit more theoretical. But I would say when it comes to the next five to 15 years there's quite some confidence that you know the continuation of Moore's law, the continuation of this industry is pretty strong. It's a lot of challenges of course but that's always been true. When we talk about two nanometer chips how small is it two nanometer chip? You put it into perspective.
The chip itself is not too small right? The chip itself is still a few millimeter by a few millimeter which is really really small is the size of the transistor right? Two nanometer is basically about 200 times the size of a silicon atom right? So you start basically to look at dimension that comes close to atomic dimension. So this is extremely small and it means that the way the transistor are going to work is such that people start to count electrons as well. So we are getting as close as you can imagine to the limit of physics or at least the limit of physics as we will learn them at school and this is what makes this moment in this industry so exciting because this requires of course new innovation.
Now you spent I believe six billion dollars to develop this or a very long time frame. More than 15 years just how do you cultivate that type of long term mindset? So we spend a minute more than that but you know what is defining I think is in many ways and if you ask me this is maybe what makes is a unique. We do things because we believe this is the right things to do and when we look at UV you know if you go back 20 years ago we looked at different options that could be useful for lithography. We had UV we had EBM we had what people call still today nano imprints which consist in getting the critical in contact to the weather and each one of those options were very very difficult and we picked UV not because it was the easiest one in fact UV was less advanced most probably than EBM or basically nano imprints but we picked UV because we thought that this was the only technology that over time could scale to the point where we could provide the resolution but also the productivity meaning that we could also provide this at the right cost and that's how it started and we were convinced that the industry needed which I think has been proven since then I mean everyone is aware of you know the story of TSMC going to 7,500 meter with UV Intel not doing that and you know what was the results of that so we were convinced that the industry will need it and then we invested in that to the level we could afford it which if you look back you know 20, 25 years ago SML was not a very rich company in fact we went as far as asking our customer to co-invest with us on the program but we did it because we thought that this had to be fixed and I can tell you that that was not easy and for a long time I think there was not even a guarantee that this would work but there was we thought most probably a 80% change that this would work because we still understood the physics we still understood the fundamentals and this is the reason why we went there and that could sound strange to a lot of people because you know people could ask well did you have at least a good business plan and the answer at that time was no I mean we couldn't find a way to make the business plan look even reasonable right because the challenge was such but there was this belief that if we get it done and if this allowed the industry to move forward this would be good for the industry this would be of course good for us as a resource and I think we truly believe in SML that as long as we are contributing to extend this industry by one more node so as long as we extend basically more slow then we generate a lot of value for everyone.
I mean the value chain here in this industry is really fascinating so you talked about getting financing from your customers they also took ownership stakes in you. Yeah at some point they did. How important has that been for the corporation? This was important for tourism the first one maybe the most important part it was showing also the commitment they had on the technology so I think it was very important for us to have this alignment with the key players to know that UV was important for them and I think that their co-investment was the proof of that and you know again at the time where the ability for SML to invest in R&D was for sure less than it is today this also gave us enough fun practically to to accelerate the development of UV so I think this co-investment of the program most probably accelerated the whole UV program by let's say maybe 3-5 years which you know is significant and again we had partner you know we had people that days after days night after night we were working with us we are together on the same trip to get UV to work and that's very important because if you are going to do something that difficult you feel better if you are not alone right? Absolutely, talking of which you also work very closely with Size on the optics tell us about that relationship so this is a German optics company.
Well so you know when Size and SML talk about the relationship we said this relationship is worse than a marriage because we can never get divorced right we have created a level of inter inter dependency between the two company which is extremely high and the reason for that is we made the choice from the very beginning to focus on what we are good at and Size is extremely good on optic they have become excellent over time of course they have gone also through their learning for more than 30 years and they are learning as allowed them to be able to do something like UV or even INA today while in parallel we were doing the same learning basically on everything else that lithography has to provide.
Why don't you merge? Well because I think you know you need to want it and I think this has never been the case and there you know you touch to culture you touch to history you touch to business model and what we have learned over time is that even if you don't merge you can develop model that I will say can become almost even maybe more effective than if you were to merge because in the way we work everyone does its own things with its own culture its own mind and I think this has been a strange to be honest over time it's very good to have a partner that is also different from you and that therefore not only is able to work with you but is always able to challenge also the way you do things and I think that's that's part of the great relationship with we have with I's.
Where do you see AI developing over the next few years? I mean we're seeing you know XAI putting like 100,000 GPUs to form colossus just an incredible development just now. Yeah so I think it's a very very important question for this industry and if I start with the end I'm a true believer of AI of what AI can do basically for or say for humanity and the reason for that is if I look at what we have been doing in SML we see many many places where AI can help. The most important part I think is R&D at the end I think the strongest potential value of AI is to be able to accelerate our learning cycle so in some way accelerate R&D and improve our product and all of that can be done because in the past few years the amount of data we have been generating to develop our product but also the amount of data we generate once our product are running at our customers enormous so there's a huge untapped potential of making good use of this data and AI can do that but now what we also see is that to trust AI to do that the models that are needed have to be even better than what we see today so the number of parameters that model will have to use is going to grow very quickly most probably also exponentially so there's another low also there with AI and that requires even more high computing power so we will first see a huge demand of high computing power with more advanced technology so three nanometer two nanometer and we'll go to angstrom type of node all of that I think we will find a lot of appetite from AI people to use it so that's the first part and this will I will say create huge opportunity the second part is how are those supporting going to to play a rollout in the next few years and I think that's the most difficult question so we a lot of us I think are very convinced about the huge potential AI has to offer I think none of us know exactly at which speed this will come basically to the market if I may say because at some point of time AI has to be more than just you know an activity around a research and development this has to be translated into product who is going to be the winner here well I think at the end of the day you know I always believe that when it comes to model software you will have a lot of people who can do that I believe that the way you will design your hardware the way you will architect basically the chips is very very important this is why company like NVIDIA MD you know a few more most probably moving forward we'll really fight for that because I think that product enabled whatever algorithm people may think on top of that and of course those products can only exist if you know company like TSMC entails some some provide the technology to create a chip and those companies can only do that if they continue to use our lithography tools yeah so you will have I think quite some winners and you cannot pick one because if you were to take out any of those name everyone lose right that's the beauty also of this ecosystem we need each other right the talking with the superscalers on our designing the round chips how good are these chips I think they are very good and I think they will get better over time I think today the chips that are being used both for memory or logic we are not even necessarily designed for AI I think people have just taken the best chips available at the moment which is GPUs and high bandwidth memory for example but I think both in logic and in memory we will see major design change to optimize chips further for AI I think this this is most probably happening as we speak I think that those chips are pretty good but I think there is still major improvement possible and you know this will also have an impact on the type of chips our own customer with manufacturers so I think that's one of the very interesting things with AI AI is changing the industry you know it's not that you only see new product you see those product becoming the most important one for the industry so for a long time this was mobile today it's AI and it means that the roadmap of a lot of people including our roadmap will shift basically with the idea that we want to serve this new opportunity but I think those chips are good but they will be a lot better in a few years from that when I prepared for for this podcast I I conferred with Chris Miller who wrote the book the chip wars and who is one of the leading experts in the world and and he was just wondering given how much of the development and R&D and so on in the world which now depends on getting smaller and smaller chips how do you feel about having this incredible weight on your shoulders well I think it's a huge it's a huge responsibility
I think that's the first feeling you get because well you know you said it in your introduction we used to be this this company no one knows about I think this has changed quite a bit I think we are today a company that a lot of people rely on basically in order to be able to to to create their product and I think that's that's a huge responsibility and this means for us that more than ever we have to continue to develop our products so that you know we never become the bottleneck to this industry we need to make sure we can produce them in enough capacity whatever the capacity will be needed so that anyone can play so you know we serve the market in this in a very fair way and you know this of course create a lot of of pride for every ISML employee you know
I think the if you're an engineer then you tell an engineer that what you do nowadays is is at the core most probably of any major innovation moving forward I think it's a it's a lot of pride as well so you have responsibility you have pride and I think this also put us in a place where I think we understand we we have to play our whole so I think this this have changed a bit I will say that the way ISML has been looking at the world and I think you have seen our involvement as a resource a lot more strong a lot more a lot stronger than it used to be
changing tax a bit the geopolitical tensions that we have now between the US and China what are the implications for you well I think there are many many implications because you know we went to from a world where we were looking at a you know very very open collaborative world right I think the idea a few years ago was that you know we are going to do business everywhere everyone can work with everyone and this has supported I will say the development of our industry quite significantly because every part became important and we go from that view of the world to a view of the world where people more and more are looking at potentially decoupling sex and this change of course everything because the way this industry was designed the way this industry has developed was based on the previous world it was based on a completely open market it was based on the idea that you can basically use the revenue of more advanced products sorry the revenue of less advanced product that you have developed a few years before to fund the development of more advanced one so you had this balance which which I think is a bit being put in question so this requires quite some some adjustment and I think we see two main risks on that the the main one is cost you know because if you get less revenue you have less ability to do R&D except if your cost increase if you are limited in geographic area to produce things cost could also goes up I think we are all very much aware that for example that when it comes to build to manufacture of chips the US Europe are a lot more expensive than Asia that's also most of this slow down a bit the innovation because again we used to have this very open ecosystem and this this may be also a question so this makes things of course a bit more difficult or potentially a lot more difficult depending on how far you push basically the decoupling model so it's very fundamental yeah no absolutely how far behind is China here now well I think I think I've said that a few things a few times publicly I think and a few people have said that so China doesn't have access to UV and UV is critical for advanced logic I think this has been demonstrated in the western world I go back again to the TSMC Intel story you know UV was introduced for R&D around 2016-17 started to go to production around 2018 and this means that China is at least I would say 10 years behind and most probably a bit more because as we were looking back in 2016-17 they were already you know a couple of generation behind so you know 10-15 years is most probably if you look at logic where we understand and it's very very difficult to do advanced logic without UV you you can of course make a few chips over time if you transistor but you cannot do it in volume you cannot do it at a cost that is reasonable so you cannot do it in a way that is economically viable
Taiwan is in the middle of this whole value chain what how risky is that well I think that you know it's it's a very difficult question I I you know I I don't know to be honest because you you can speculate on that you can only have an opinion there's always a risk of course to to have the supply chain concentrated in in one place I think no one can argue with that but then I will say we present a similar risk for for the market in this sense you know guessing what's going to happen on geopolitics is difficult because anything happening with Taiwan will have major implication for for the entire world clearly so I'm not I'm not one of the people who who are very much looking at very bad you know you're to Taiwan I think those are very unlikely but I think again that's that's more of a personal opinion than anything else I'm sure you have your own but I think what is for sure certain is that the tension could could raise over time and how fast do you think what can ramp up chip manufacturing in US Japan South Korea well I think the the manufacturing part is one thing the irony part is another thing I think when you look at chips you need to have R&D first you know if you don't have R&D meaning if you don't have somewhere someone that provides you the next generation of chips it's a matter of time even if you have manufacturing that you manufacture things that are not very relevant so I think the access to R&D is is very very important and I truly believe that when it comes to advanced chips you only can do those things if you have the history it's a bit like the story I gave you about SMN and Zeiss I think we can do UV today because we have done everything before we believe it's very hard for anyone to start from scratch and do UV I think it's the same for chips I think the idea that someone could just create an R&D center and be able to do you know a two nanometer or one point for nanometer I think is from my point of view extremely difficult if not impossible and that's you know that's where you see those cooperation even for example Japan of course is is looking at doing two nanometer logic but this is using technology from IBM right so you cannot just come out of the blue on those kind of things so if you don't have it I think it takes a very very long time
But yet the you have chip back in in various countries you have it in the US you got similar things in Japan UK you just really huge amounts of money so how do you view this well it's huge but you know the problem is it all depends on the scale you're looking at and I think chip acts for my point of view are are good to motivate people to restart the engine or to do some initial investment but I know I said it a few times already in in discussion cost is very important for this industry you need to get it right and the problem with chip act is that they don't solve that chip tax can help you to to put a factory to buy some tool to get going for one node but what's very important that's discussion we have with many government is to also make sure that you create a condition where you can compete on cost and on flexibility because you know subsidies are usually something that do not last forever and if over time you don't solve structurally competitive disadvantage you may have on cost or flexibility the fact that you know you boost for a while the R&D or the construction of new fab is in no way a guarantee of success for the future so I think that's the part I think that is very important to understand this industry is very competitive very sensitive to cost
chip tax as it have helped to recreate a bit some activity and some interest and give a chance again for some country to restart in semiconductor but all those countries will have to make sure that they become competitive and I think that's that's a very that's most of the more difficult part of the 50 largest technology companies in the world only four are in Europe so and naive question here why why is that well I think you know it's it's a very tough question in Europe and you know if you knew the amount of time we we spent having this exact same same same discussion but you know I already touched on some of that you know I talked about flexibility I talked about cost this is very important I think access to capital is also very very critical you you need to be able to invest I think today access to capital is a lot stronger in the US than it is in Europe I think you know that very well right but a lot even of the capital usually being used to invest in Europe come from from the US so that's something people underestimate that's very important access to resources to you know electricity power
the price of the power all of that are very very important things and you see a lot of those debate happening today in Europe this other discussion we're having of course with with our government you know we we made a decision to extend ourselves you know in the Netherlands because that makes sense for us but we only can do that if we have the infrastructure if we have the energy if we have all those things so the reason why you have less company in Europe than maybe other place of the world is because those things today are just more difficult and you know Mario Draghi just published a report in Europe which I think described that very very nicely and now what's important is to have the political will to reinvest in the future and basically create opportunity I think that's very very important and are we going to see this well I think it's almost you know a matter of life of death at some point because well what if you never see it yeah so what is left in a few years from now so I think you see more and more people talking about this in more and more country because I think it's a will for the people to really be able to to to have those interesting companies those interesting jobs you know I was talking about I said Mel I was telling you about the pride of our employee I mean any educated person in Europe wants to have a chance to walk in a great company it's fine to talk but it is are things happening I think they are happening I think we could easily agree they are too slow I think that the dialogue between politics and industry is most probably increasing in Europe the challenge most probably will be to make sure we bring the entire population on board because those topics are not always easy to explain and these are not the topic that maybe are the easiest for politicians to to pursue to get elected
Now Velthoven is a small town of 45 000 people on the Dutch Belgian border it's not the it's not the obvious place for one of the one of the most important couples in the world to to be situated how how come you ended up there well I think we used to have a bigger brother called Phillips you know that Phillips used to be extremely successful company and Phillips created you know back 40 50 years ago a lot of basically startup and a lot of those startup became a significant company so I similarly is one of them I think you know ISM International is another one right so they we come from the same same roots in some way and Phillips also had developed this culture of innovation so you know ISM is sitting in an area that we call the the brain port and the brain port is still a very lively area in Europe when it comes to innovation I think that's still built on the whole the concept of of Phillips so that's why we are here and I think over time you know we have developed a very strong ecosystem you we talk a lot about you know ISM we talked a bit about ZEIS but our supply chain is critical of course you know we talked about the optic but mechatronics is very important and all of that is also done in Europe in Netherlands in Germany so there's a lot of critical company that are also contributing to our success of course there are a lot less known than ISM so they are still a bit obstetric most probably but they have been going with with ISM else I think the whole supply chain around you know a welderven even in welderven or eindelven which is the bigger city on the side are very critical
现在,维尔特霍芬是一个位于荷兰与比利时边界的小镇,人口约为45,000人。这个地方看起来不像是世界上最重要的几对夫妇之一会居住的地方,您怎么会选择在这里安家呢?我想,这要追溯到过去,我们曾经有一个强大的兄弟公司叫飞利浦。飞利浦是一家极其成功的公司,大约在40到50年前,它孵化了许多初创公司,其中许多后来发展成了重要的企业。ASML 就是其中之一,我认为ISM International 也是如此。我们在某种程度上有着共同的起源。
飞利浦还建立了一种创新文化,所以ASML 位于一个我们称之为“脑港”的地区,这是欧洲一个在创新领域依然非常活跃的区域。我认为这一切都建立在飞利浦的理念之上。因此,这就是我们在这里的原因。随着时间的推移,我们建立了一个非常强大的生态系统。我们谈了很多关于ASML 的事情,稍微讲了一些关于ZEISS 的内容,但我们的供应链当然也非常重要。比如我们谈论光学的同时,机电一体化也是非常关键的,这些工作都是在欧洲、在荷兰、在德国完成的。有很多不太知名但对我们成功至关重要的公司参与其中,它们可能没有ASML那么有名,但一直与我们携手共进。我认为围绕维尔特霍芬乃至更大城市埃因霍温的整个供应链都是至关重要的。
how would you describe the culture at ASML I think you know what people usually say first about ISML is that this is a non-political organization meaning that people don't do things basically in order to gain credit for themselves they do things for the good of the company and I think that's something that is very very strong and this creates both a style of management but also a style of interaction between between people so I'll give you an example our employees feel very natural to challenges on anything I'm the CEO of the company it doesn't mean that people don't argue with me no you know when we engage on any topic technical non-technical there will be a debate because there is this belief that the debate has to take place to really create and bring the best possible decision so that's a bit ASML and that culture has been very very solid for many many years of course we have been going so we we also have to make sure that this culture doesn't go against you know inclusion of the people joining us so it's sometime a bit or so rough people thought in the you know in the past this was a bit rough but the the very eye focus on doing what is right for our customer and therefore for the company I think is is that at the core of ISML and as a resource you see a very open very lively company it still feels like a family company or so you know it's pretty big nowadays of course we have 44 000 people so you could say it's pretty big but the way I know my colleagues the way I know the leadership we still feel this is not a very big team and that's very interesting so we we have kept I would say the essential of the DNA while of course finding ways to scale to to the size we have today
In your mind what's the key to good leadership and berness I would say that's the first world that comes to mind. I think you you have to remain humble. I think you you have to to remember that you're serving a bigger cause. I think it's very very important you need to be authentic people have to see you for what you are. I think they should be no artificial discussion or they should be known you know attempt to try to please people or to convince people. I think you have to be very authentic you have to be direct. I think you have to work hard lead by example.
I think you have to stay on content you know sometime when people gets to bigger hold they sometimes believe that everything can be solved by processes. I think processes are very important to make things happen at scale but content is essential especially in this industry you need to know basically what is happening so that you can anticipate what could happen next you need to be strategic so you have to be able basically to to dream. I think being able to dream is very very important for leaders and at the same time you have to be able to explain that dream in a very simple way very clear way so that people can translate it into things they can execute on so you see there's a lot of things and I don't know in which order I brought them to you but that's that's too let's do to them.
How do you stay on content well that's that's that's easy because I don't know how to do it differently so for me that's that's you know if I if I don't have content discussion with my engineer my operation people my sales people my customer my supplier I feel I do something wrong because I feel that I lose the connection to what is essential you know I often tell the people in SML if we if our customer trust us if we do the right product for them because we understand them because we listen to them I think the rest will be fine we have to manage the company in a very good way but we will be fine in fact we'll be more than fine but those two things customer trust having the right product that's content you you don't have that if you don't have content and therefore for me if I don't have access to this information for for a bit I will very quickly feel that I'm mostly not leading the company in the right way.
Why is storytelling important storytelling is important because you need to be able to explain people why things are important and the only way to do that is to simplify. I could tell you UV is very complex I prefer to tell you UV is very simple you ask me to explain you UV in one minute I think that's the right question because you need to be able to explain what you do and if it takes you too many words to do that then you don't explain it ever so I think it's very important to to the story setting is very important the simplification the clarity around what you do I think is very important where did you learn it I think you learn it over time you see people doing that you also see the effect of having a simple story very versus a complicated story and I think you need to have affinity for it I think that there's part of it which is your own character I think you know you know there are things that most probably you are born with I will say and that's helpful but I think you if you pay attention to it and I invite you to leave my my and pray to do that to if you pay attention on how far you will go if you give a simple story and people understand it if you can make your case I think making your case is a very important thing I always say you you cannot convince people you you have to give them the elements so they convince themselves because it's a lot more powerful but if you practice that I think you you realize that this is powerful and and maybe over time you you get better at it but this for me is very very important.
What is driving you personally I think you know if you if you are to go really deep psychologically I think a solving problem. I think you know I always say if I look at the different job I had in my career I think they have this they have a few common points solving problem is one of them so if you're an engineer you know you you have a problem you look at data and then you come to a solution I think the same is still true if you're a CEO of course the problem is a bit different you look at the problem is most really what what does this industry need in the next five years second problem is how do we make it happen third problem is how do we found it etc etc but these are still a problem you have to solve and I think you have to make the problem again simple so that you can have a solution if you think the problem is complex you will never solve it right that's the way it works so solving problem drives me I think the contact with people is is a major driver I you know I feel blessed in this industry I mean everyone you meet is is just inspiring I mean you you go have a talk a dinner or a meeting with anyone in the semiconductor industry it's just a blast because. people have a great experience they are pretty unbo I think they share this need to bring something positive and again maybe this need to solve problems together and I think the connection to people has been always a very very very motivating factor in in in my career it's still today and you know the last thing I will say is I enjoy what I do very much so I take really great pleasure in in doing what I do in SML and you know this is true today but it's been true for the last 25 years in this industry there's not been one boring day good for you so let's talk.
If you were to to go a bit deep why do you work so hard is it a particular person you want to you want to prove wrong yeah you know does it does it come back to some type of inferiority complex that we all had when we were younger or what do you think there is a time in your career you think you have to be honest I think the first part of your career is about proving yourself I think I truly believe that and I truly believe that because I I still remember the day I felt I was done with that there was a day I say okay I think I've proven what I wanted to prove to myself maybe to my friends my family and then you look forward I say okay what's next and I think what's next after that is okay what can I do to help and you know where is the place where I can do something that that matters that can really help and you know when I became the CEO of SML when people asked me to become the CEO of SML this was one of the two question I really had the question was really if I'm going to do that can I really bring something this company is great you know with Peter Martin before they have done something extraordinary even intimidating for most people so if I do it am I going to do something that could be you know really good and it was very important for me to be able to answer yes to that question in all honesty you know not very fundamentally I think it's for me that when you don't have to prove anything anymore I think it's very liberating so I wish everyone that this come as early as possible in their career and then you have more space basically to really think about what can I do to be useful or what can I do to help tell me about the day where you felt you had no more to prove.
well it's worth you know I always wanted to either run my company or run what I would call a company within a company and this happened in SML in fact when I took one of the the the the product unit this was the application product unit which was a very new unit I'm looking back now 2011 or 2012 I forgot exactly so more than 10 years ago and this this was really what I wanted I never wanted to become CEO I never wanted to be part of a board of management I wanted to do that and then I had it I did it it went well and then I after that most probably I was more free than ever and I think in many ways is most probably what also allowed me to to come to where I am today how do you relax well I don't get stressed so that's the best way to relax is you know I was just explaining to one of my employee today that you know stress is not a good friend so I'm you know it's I don't know if if if this is surprising or not but I don't feel stress even being a SML or CEO so that's one thing
and when I want to do something that I really like you know I like to go to the upper right that's one thing I like I like music a lot so you know I put it's in the high six with technology nowadays you put the airport and you can be in your in your world with your music I like to do that a lot I like to support when I have a time I love to be with my family with the kids because the you know it is nice with children as they force you to forget everything simple things I would say very very simple things I find them very healthy and by having them all the time for me I think you know it never bring me to to to a place where I feel stress how do you make sure you don't get stressed is it genetic or is it something you have trained I think most really something I have trained because well I don't I will not say my parents were not stressed so I think most really something I have trained maybe also as a reaction to that but I I like you know when I need to think when I need to decide I like to feel that I'm calm I feel that usually it's a much better state of mind basically to to make decisions so I think it's practice you know some people do yoga or things like that to reach that I don't do that but that's that's more in the and notice breathing is very important you know the way you breathe in life is very important I always tell people when you're going to make a big presentation you have to watch the way you are going to breathe for the first 30 seconds because if you if you breathe too fast your your presentation will go wrong very quickly so you have little sinks like that but I think it's it's practice most probably
when you go to bed and when you wake up well that depends entirely I would say you know in normal day meaning when I'm at home and you know I would say I'll sleep seven hours maybe six seven hours when I travel that can go down to three four hours and that doesn't disturb me so you know the energy level mind energy level is usually pretty high and I need to rest you know usually short time so some some time I can fall asleep in a car it's happened very often between the meetings and 10 minutes can get me back to to the max energy level so you know it's one of the challenges I think with this life at a sick physically you have to to be able to take it but you you don't have a rhythm you have to learn to live without you know a reason because if you want to have the rhythm I think it's completely so you have to learn how to sleep in the plane sleep in the car all those things are important where does energy come from you think I think I think it comes to what I said before I mean you know doing what I do today is is an unbelievable or pretty privilege I mean being the CEO of ASMR is you know there's so many good interesting exciting things happening every day that the energy just flow you know it's like coming from all parts I told you about the people I meet I mean every time I go see customers suppliers the the discussion we have are so so deep right so exciting I mean we talk about so exciting stuff I mean you know when you grow as an engineer you know I study science right and you walk in a company that pretty much allow you to do any of your dream as long as they become a product someone can use in a factory I mean you know did we dream about anything different when we are engineer I don't think so so that gives you a lot of energy
what do you read I like to read literature you know noverse because I I like to to kind of move away so if I have free time I'm not going to read business book I don't like business book as a story for anyone writing them but I don't find this inspiring at all I like novels I like people that create and that's what you see noverse right has there been a novel which has been particularly important for you well I there's a French writer like very much it's called it's called Camus I don't know if you you know him the he wrote a book it's called The Stranger he has a lot of very good book I like or so Andre Malro
so they are contemporary writer I like the style I like the the modernity of it and also the creativity so it's very interesting it's both creative but not in a in a very obvious way like maybe older literature I like his story book or so I like to read a lot biography because you you learn about people life which sometimes can be also very inspiring so that's typically the kind of things I will read last question what advice do you have for young people well I think you know is find something you really like you know I think don't think too much about your career I see too many young people who come to see me and they want to be CEO and they ask me how do we become CEO and I try to explain them in the nicest possible way that this is a this is almost an observed question this is not the right question
the right question is what am I going to do to more that really get me excited that really bring the best out of me because if you go and do that every day yeah there may be a chance you become CEO most probably a bigger chance that you don't but you will equally end up doing something that brings you joy energy and most really also bring that to the people around you so I think it's very important to enjoy the moment but really find something you like I think it's even start when you you study you you have to study something you like of course I will advise them to to take a look at this industry because I think this is a great place but you know I also don't know everything so I will not limit it to that but I think it's very important for them to to not think too much I you know I
think it's one problem when society gets so smart over time right people think too much I think you have to be able to enjoy the moment even if you are very very smart well Kristoff is very clear that you are enjoying your job as CEO of ASML incredibly important job and so please on behalf of all of us keep shrinking those chips so that the world can continue to move forward we'll do our best wonderful big thank you thank you very much if you like