In an intensive meeting in November 1984, the ASML team plotted its product roadmap in a day. The actions and results that followed formed the basis of the time-to-market attitude and culture that still exists in the company today.
It happened in just one day and it must have been a weird spectacle. Unfortunately, I never got to speak to the two Philips trainers, both outsiders, who witnessed what can be described as the coming of age of ASML. None of the interviewees for the ASML book remembered who these two guys were, but in mid-November 1984, they were present when all the pieces fell together after half a year of preparation, writing plans, doubling the ASML staff and getting sufficient financial resources. This is what I heard from a handful of ASML people who were there as well.
In mid-November 1984, ASML’s managers and senior engineers boarded a bus headed north. The twenty of them were going to spend the next two days in Hotel Victoria at the edge of De Hoge Veluwe National Park, engaged in a mix of team building and training. They were preparing for an intense bout of catch-up – development had to move faster. Their new machine had to be ready for launch in record time.
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