ARTICLE
ASML and Neurodiversity
CULTURE & COMMUNICATIONS - MARCH 2026
ASML makes the machines that make the chips that run the world. Every advanced semiconductor manufactured today passes through a process that depends on ASML's lithography equipment. The company holds a near-monopoly on the most advanced versions of this technology, with a market capitalisation that has made it one of the most valuable companies in Europe. Its CTO, Martin van den Brink, is dyslexic. He describes getting through school by the skin of his teeth. He is also, by almost any measure, one of the most consequential engineers of the last thirty years. ASML's relationship with neurodiversity is a competitive infrastructure.
What It Is
Neurodiversity describes neurological variation in how brains process information. The term covers autism, ADHD, dyslexia, high giftedness, and combinations of these. Deloitte estimates that between 10 and 20 percent of the global population is neurodivergent. At ASML, the internal estimate is significantly higher, reflecting both the self-selection of people who thrive in precision engineering environments and a deliberate commitment to creating conditions where neurologically atypical people can operate at full capacity.
ASML's Atypical employee network, founded originally as the autism embassy, grew into a formal structure with board members, events, and a direct line to senior leadership. The network's purpose is twofold: to create community and self-awareness for neurodiverse employees, and to build awareness among neurotypical colleagues and managers of what support and adaptation actually requires.
Why It Matters Now
Most organisations treat neurodiversity as an accommodation problem: a legal and ethical obligation to make adjustments for employees who disclose a diagnosis. ASML treats it as a talent strategy: a recognition that neurologically atypical cognition produces qualities, including deep pattern recognition, high tolerance for complexity, and unconventional problem-solving, that are disproportionately valuable in high-precision, high-innovation environments.
The creative industry is disproportionately populated by neurodivergent people. Most creative organisations manage this informally. ASML suggests a different approach: name it, structure for it, and build the management capability to draw the best from it rather than hoping individuals will compensate for an environment that was designed for neurotypical functioning.
Case Evidence
Arnout Nederpelt, a business analyst at ASML and board member of the Atypical network, spent three years applying for jobs after graduating from Eindhoven University of Technology before discovering he was both highly gifted and on the autism spectrum. At ASML, where the environment was adjusted to his profile, he built a twelve-year career across supply chain, quality, and research and development.
Carin Pieper, another Atypical board member, was not diagnosed with ADHD until her late twenties. Her diagnosis followed years of attempting to maintain a work-life balance that the conventional working model made structurally impossible for her. She says: "A lot of neurodiverse people, especially women, tend to be diagnosed later in life. I want to help other people at ASML to learn about themselves."
Van den Brink's support for the network is institutional. He has said: "If you look at some of the strengths of neurodiversity, such as innovation and creativity, it's what we need in ASML. ASML wouldn't be where it is today without neurodivergent people, some of whom are in top leadership roles in the company."
How It Works
STEP 01
Audit the current working environment for neurotypical assumptions: meeting structures that require rapid verbal processing, open office environments that generate sensory overload, communication norms that disadvantage people who process differently.
STEP 02
Create named, visible structures for neurodiverse employees to self-identify, connect, and articulate what adaptations would allow them to operate at higher capacity.
STEP 03
Build management capability specifically around listening: the ability to understand what a team member needs without requiring them to explain it in neurotypical terms.
STEP 04
Involve neurodiverse employees in the design of working environments and policies, as ASML did with its Veldhoven office buildings.
STEP 05
Measure the output of adapted environments against previous performance, building the case internally that accommodation is a performance investment rather than a welfare cost.
Industry Application
Creative businesses are high-density neurodivergent environments that almost universally lack the management infrastructure to draw the best from that density. The designer who disappears for four hours into a problem and produces something exceptional is expressing a capacity that in the wrong environment will look like poor time management. The strategist who cannot process feedback in real time but produces extraordinary written analysis is being evaluated on a verbal competency that has nothing to do with the quality they bring.
ASML's approach offers a practical model: name the reality of the working population, build the structures that allow different processing styles to produce their best output, and treat the management capability to work with neurodiversity as a competitive skill rather than an HR function.
Financial Dimension
Deloitte's 2022 research on neurodiversity in the workplace found that teams with neurodivergent members are 30 percent more productive on average than those without, and that organisations with inclusive neurodiversity programmes report higher innovation rates. The financial case is primarily about the output difference between a neurodivergent employee operating in an environment designed for them versus one operating in an environment designed against them. In a creative business where individual output quality is the primary revenue driver, that differential is not a marginal consideration.
Where the Market Fails
The creative industry hires for neurodivergent qualities: the obsessive pattern recognition of the exceptional designer, the relentless ideation of the creative director who cannot stop generating. It then builds management systems for neurotypical functioning: regular meetings, verbal feedback, social performance expectations, open environments. The mismatch extracts a fraction of the available capacity and calls the shortfall a talent problem.
Diagnostic Questions
QUESTION 01:
Does the working environment accommodate different processing and communication styles, or does it require adaptation to one neurotypical standard?
QUESTION 02:
Are there team members whose output in certain conditions is exceptional and whose output in others is inconsistent, and has the organisation investigated what the environmental difference is?
QUESTION 03:
Does management capability include the ability to work effectively with neurodivergent team members, or is that left to individual goodwill?
Practitioner Reference
"In society there is still a stigma attached to neurodiversity. But we want to celebrate it and help people to realise that it is just as normal as being left-handed." Arnout Nederpelt, ASML Atypical Network board member, ASML Stories, 2022
Key Takeaways
01
Neurodiversity is a talent strategy, not an accommodation obligation; the qualities associated with neurological difference are disproportionately valuable in creative and innovation-intensive environments.
02
The management capability to draw the best from neurodivergent team members is a competitive skill that most creative organisations have not developed.
03
The mismatch between neurodivergent hiring and neurotypical management systems extracts a fraction of the available capacity from the most distinctive members of the team.
04
Visible, named structures for neurodiverse employees produce better outcomes than informal accommodation because they normalise the conversation.
05
The financial case for neurodiversity investment is primarily about output quality differential, not accommodation cost.
What This Means for DON'T WASTE I Partnerships
Under Company Culture and Internal Communications, the ASML model informs how DWI approaches talent environment assessments. The audit identifies where the management system is extracting less than full capacity from team members whose processing styles differ from the neurotypical norm. The consultancy work builds the management frameworks and environmental adaptations that allow the full range of cognitive capacity in the team to contribute to the work.
Closing
ASML built the most technically precise machines in the world with people whose brains were described as imprecise. That is a strategy.
Sources
ASML, Atypical: How ASML Relies on Neurodiversity for Innovation (2022): asml.com/en/news/stories/2022/atypical Deloitte, Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage (2022): deloitte.com Peter Bailliere, ASML EVP HR, and Arnout Nederpelt, quoted in ASML Stories (2022) Martin van den Brink interview, de Volkskrant