From Decrypt · By Jose Antonio Lanz
In brief
Proton users are reporting subscription cancellations and calling for CEO Andy Yen to resign.
Yen reportedly called a request for additional security testing “loser thinking” while pushing faster AI adoption.
The company canceled planned AI re-interviews, then published a manifesto defending its engineering overhaul.
Proton users are reporting subscription cancellations after revelations that CEO Andy Yen pressured engineers to embrace AI and dismissed a request for more security testing as “loser thinking.”
The Swiss privacy company has since canceled planned employee assessments of AI use.
The backlash cuts into Proton’s main selling point—trusting it with information people want kept private. Its encrypted email service scrambles messages to protect their contents, and customers questioning its development practices are asking whether faster releases could come at their expense.
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34%66%YesNo$42.81K volumeOpen until resolutionOpen until resolutionA Proton employee asked the company in August for a few days to pentest new code, meaning specialists would try to break into it before release, per 404 Media. Yen replied: “That’s bullshit and loser thinking. Of course it’s possible to be fast and secure.”
He also urged staff to stop writing code by hand and use more AI, and mentioned that he’d be reinterviewing its staff to see if and how they are using AI to do their job, the outlet reported. Its investigation drew on nine current and former employees, internal messages, and meeting recordings.
This didn’t land well among users, and customers have responded with cancellation notices and demands for new leadership on social media such as Reddit. A proposal on Proton’s feedback forum calling for Yen to step down had 2,020 votes when reviewed, alongside comments from users saying they had canceled subscriptions or would not renew.
Besides the blind use of AI, some former and current Proton employees on Reddit and social media have documented a toxic work culture, especially from the CEO.
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Proton’s AI ambitions predate this dispute. Its Lumo chatbot comes with protections against using conversations to train AI, but internal use of AI was not among Proton’s selling points, even in the peak of the chatbot hype.