Technology

Andy Yen, the CEO of Proton, had a message for an employee in the company’s security Slack channel who urged the company to at least take a few days to pentest newly written code before pushing it live. “That’s bullshit and loser thinking. Of course it’s possible to be fast and secure,” Yen wrote in the channel at the end of August. “Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.”

In a follow-up message, Yen reiterated his point: “only losers think like that.” His ultimate message for the team was to “stop lovingly handcrafting all our code and use AI more.”

This sounds like the most insecure loser statement I've ever heard. Andy Yen and the rest of the Proton Execs seem to have fully bought into the man-o-sphere in the same way that every basement incel has.

The same CEO who, a while ago, praised the Republicans? How can a company under someone like that ever be "privacy first"? If I remember correctly, there were a lot of people acting as if this wouldn't affect the products in of itself, but how could it not?

Holy shit this CEO is fully unhinged, I feel so much for the employees at Proton. What the fuck. I like Proton products T.T

“Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.”

It's not "how to be slower" but "how to be safer and ensure we deliver a product that holds up to what we're portraying it as."

Andy Yen, the CEO of Proton, had a message for an employee in the company’s security Slack channel who urged the company to at least take a few days to pentest newly written code before pushing it live. “That’s bullshit and loser thinking. Of course it’s possible to be fast and secure,” Yen wrote in the channel at the end of August. “Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.”

“Due to insufficient velocity,” Proton is not on track to achieve its annual recurring revenue target by the end of the year, one internal document obtained by 404 Media reads. Proton’s year-over-year growth is also “far away from what the market today considers to be good,” and, “By all metrics that matter, we’re an underperforming company.”

In a Slack channel dedicated to thanking people for their work, Yen jumped in. “Get it fixed,” he wrote, referring to Proton’s Reddit post announcing the feature. “Now Reddit is pissed and we look worse than Tuta,” he added, referring to a Proton competitor.

I think he believes that he will be the next Steve Jobs by screaming to their employers and forcing AI to increase annual revenue and imagine TAKING REDDIT COMMENTS SERIOUSLY AS AN CEO and comparing themselves with Tuta.

Just a friendly reminder that Mozilla (creators of Firefox/Thunderbird) created a email service called Thundermail in case you want to check it out, I honestly trust more in Mozilla than in Proton, is a bit expensive and it's currently on beta access, but I love Firefox so I feel like this is the way to give them money they can actually use.

This was enough for me to jump ship, after some research fastmail seems to meet my needs. Sure its not a perfect replacement but im willing to miss out on some features to avoid funding this kind of behaviour. Voted with my wallet

Some choice quotes:

“The CEO is in full AI psychosis and has been for a while now,” one of the sources told 404 Media.

I think it's important to use the term "AI psychosis" until it becomes mainstream. There's power in simplifying, in two words, the mental illness that has spread to nearly every major-company CEO and C-suite MBA hump. And until it becomes a meme, until they know the general public sees them and knows they are blindly confident in something they don't understand, that we know they are conning themselves and us, they won't spare a moment of introspection to reconsider.

“Perception is more important than truth, the truth doesn’t matter if you don’t win on perception.”

Let's unpack this. The programmers are concerned about Proton's push for security, and they push back on objectively unmaintainable AI code - to say nothing of Yen's bullying to push to live before it's even tested - and this is Yen's response. In essence: Security does not matter more than the perception of speed.

This is demonstrably idiotic, because security issues are the "truth" being undermined here, and when someone hacks or compromises key parts of your service, that will be far more damaging some CEO-naval-gazing version of "look how fast we are."

In all, the many quotes from engineers really do the job convincing that this guy is not just a bad CEO, but a bad person. I'm sure to Board members or billionaires, this type of psychopathy and lack of empathy looks like a feature and not a bug. This probably won't change that, but every moment spent holding up a mirror helps.

I switched to Mullvad and Tuta yesterday. Still working on moving password managers. I've let some things slide in the past but Yen has turned into such a big asshole. Proton deserves a better CEO.

Can we fucking have nice things anymore? This is crystal clear, that CEOs of all kinds, ruin everything. Fuck you, Andy Yen.

i'm just so goddamn pissed off. i am too overwhelmed with life and health stuff to have to worry about what my email client is up to. i dont have many switchovers left in me, boss

I'm giving them a month to fire Yen and change direction or I'm out. I'm also looking for good recommendations of where to go - so far I'm looking at Tuta or Murena (my phone is already on /e/OS)

I guess I’ll say it here, but I have always had weird feelings about proton. They are always marked as the top of privacy alternatives to Google. I was never sold on it though and figured that the shit would hit the fan eventually

Oh fucking hell....

I gave him the benefit of the doubt with his trump "support" comments.... but this is clear as day, asshole behaviour....

Been a protonmail customer for over 10 years... not sure where to move next

Going to be migrating some of my info and deleting my account later today. They've been making bad headlines a bit lately but this paints a very clear and bleak picture. This company is completely fucked unless it has a total change in both leadership and company policy.

We've all been down this road before with these AI-obsessed dickweed tech CEO's. We know how this ends.

It's hard to imagine someone more intimately familiar with "loser thinking" than Andy Yen. Go gargle Trump's balls some more and bully your workers who actually want to build without security concerns. I'm staying far, far away from anything Proton...

I wish I could just throw out email and calendars as a service and still live in the modern world. I really don't like my only options for them being having to host it myself with all the pitfalls that can come with or using services controlled by data brokers like Google, shit heads like this guy apparently is, or our way or the highway gatekeepers like Apple.

I just want to give someone money to let me point my domain at it for email services and host my calendar without any drama or BS. Why does that concept have to be so complicated these days?

Can they force Yen out in anyway and save the brand?

Had I had even the most remote idea this would happen, I never would have migrated all my addresses years ago.

Fuck this. I can't believe I'm to waste my time changing all my fucking addresses again.

My fault for not buying a domain for my email to at least make this slightly less painful.

So much for muh Secure and private mail. Don't even know where to migrate next. Fuck this.

so much for this 'protection'

The fortunes of mail and VPN provider Proton will be managed by a foundation in the future. In this way, the founders around Andy Yen want to ensure the independence and direction of their company for the future and remove it from the influence of profit-oriented shareholders.

(emphasis mine) from heise.de

and like half the shit in this blog post written by lord proton himself, andy yen, ceo, announcing that foundation.

if this (op link) is any indication of how he treats those who work for proton, this guy needs to go.. founder or not.. ceo or not.

he was already skating on the proverbial thin ice with his magat/trump support.

Holy shit, I've already been blackpilled on AI and have fully accepted that it's never going away, but firing people over their opinions of AI and then demanding their employees adopt AI into their workflows is unhinged. Guess I'll deproton and use Mailbox.org instead because holy shit

You can't build a service for whistle blowers, petty criminals, and weirdos then say fuck security. Anyone got any recommendations for a VPN that isn't likely to have security holes as big as the ai bubble and won't give my comings and goings away to the first government or corpo interested in it?

Their cancelation server appears to be overwhelmed by the traffic.

It's okay. I will keep trying until I get through.

Update: They were still having trouble returning a successful cancelation message, but we got it done.

What a sorry excuse of a human. Fuck that guy.

Always knew this guy was a dick. Kicked proton to the curb a long time ago. These guys are all the same tech ceo morons.

This leadership mentality doesn't look good for the future of Proton.

They want to appear that they are about security but seems they are more in boat with Microsoft, now and into the future, of AI does all the work.

AI psychosis

Crap, time to drop Proton and find an alternative.

Oh well.

What's the next e-mail platform to try before it enshitiffies? Thinking of going back to postal mail.

The "anti big tech" that want's to burn CLAUDE tokens instead of hiring engineers..

Wow this is super shitty. I hope they can unionize. Dude seems to be cras h ing the ship on purpose.

Canceled subscription after the political statements, but have been putting off moving away from their free tier. Time to buy a domain and go fastmail or mailbox I guess

Do they think this is gonna play well with their security minded base?

Cancelling isn't that hard.