The Zeiss partnership and cultural frictions

How did a Dutch company most people haven’t heard of come to hold the fate of AI? Marc Hijink, author of Focus — The ASML Way joins Josh and Robb to explore the insatiably precise process of producing the chips that power GPUs, and with them the AI taking shape all around us. Marc is a financial reporter and technology columnist for the Dutch daily newspaper NRC, and Focus is the result of decades of uncompromising, embedded reporting on ASML, which produces 90% of all chips worldwide. 



Operating out of a quiet town in the Netherlands, their extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines produce a steady stream of chips working with an accuracy of within a few atoms. The trio explores how the EUV process is as much probabilistic as it is deterministic, as well as the impact that different cultures have on ASML’s partnerships and pipeline. Relying on lenses that have to be grown from crystals, lithography is a high-stakes endeavor that requires a delicate balance of tooling and advanced engineering. We need it to power everything from smartphones to washing machines to traffic lights. With China looking for inroads into this foundational technology that has been controlled by the western world, this conversation is as timely as it is fascinating.

Chapters -

00:00 - Inside ASML

01:12 - How ASML Makes the World’s Chips

03:20 - Chip Supply Chain Fragility

04:55 - Marc Hijink’s ASML Reporting

07:00 - The Hidden Hardware Layer

08:20 - Chips & Geopolitics

11:00 - Chips Are Physical Matter

12:40 - Error Correction & Precision

14:30 - ASML x TSMC Partnership

16:45 - ASML’s Chaos Culture

19:40 - Dutch vs. German Engineering

28:20 - Moore’s Law Goes 3D

32:10 - ASML + Mistral AI

40:00 - Why ASML Can’t Be Copied

49:00 - How ASML Prioritizes Orders

55:10 - Agentic AI & Complexity

1:02:00 - Humans Adapting to AI

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