Semiconductor Equipment Maker with Good Potential but Toxic Senior Management
Pros
1. Good technology, differentiated products and strong IP 2. Focused on fast-growing segments of ALD and Epitaxy 3. There are still some very talented people in certain pockets of the company
Cons
1. When Benjamin Loh was CEO from 2020-2024, the company culture and compensation dramatically improved. But with him gone, the senior management led by current CEO Hichem M'Saad, has reverted ASM to its brutal, unprofessional and insensitive ways that began in 2015 and manages more through fear and intimidation rather than positive motivation. 2. Employee morale is down significantly despite good compensation and the reason is that engineers and first-line managers are worked to exhaustion. 3. The organization is lop-sided, with process engineers significantly outnumbering hardware and software engineers, leading to poor productization and product support. The management knows this and yet, willfully ignores it. 4. Managers and employees who are “Yes Men” (and they are mostly men) get rapidly promoted but others are sidelined. Almost all the senior management (Corporate Directors and VPs) owe their ASM careers to Hichem and most of the directors/managers owe their careers to these VPs; therefore, few of them, if any, have the courage to call out the bad behavior of senior management. 5. HR is a stooge of senior management, enabling and implementing management's people-last mindset. HR only pays lip service to ASM's purported value of “We Care”- they don't provide the checks-and-balances to prevent and rectify management's bad behavior and they don't look out for rank-and-file employees' well-being.
