All you have to do as a CEO is shut the fuck up and let your product do the talking. The less I hear about your shit views the more likely I am to stay with your product.
The issue is to become a successful CEO you tend to have to believe your own lies and very quickly surround yourself with sycophants. Whats more if you buck this trend you tend to limit your skillset as societally we reward bullshit more than results.
South Park really got it right this season lol
Everyone go vote at their feedback website. There are several posts in the General Suggestions section that suggest Andy Yen step down. Mark them as critical.
Yes, abusing their feedback website will certainly make them do what you want instead of dismissing you as the crazy fringe people you are.
Using their feedback website as intended is hardly abusing. They want to know why people are leaving. This tells them what to do to fix it.
“Crazy fringe people” is literally who Proton was marketed to. Mainstream audience is perfectly fine with Gmail, if they piss off the “fringe” they’re pissing off their main userbase.
People giving customer feedback are crazy?
AbusingRightly using!
This is the quoted article: https://www.404media.co/manifestos-fear-and-loser-thinking-inside-protons-ai-reckoning/
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.”
Personally I am okay with code being written by AI as long as it is properly being checked and tested. The CEO is a prime example of management becoming a security and safety risk, which all engineers know is very dangerous. It is the same story as what caused the Challenger disaster.
I have a 2 year ProtonVPN Plus subscription so there is not really a point in canceling it right now, but if this situation doesn’t change by the end of those 2 years I’m inclined to not renew it.
That CEO needs to step down, not just for their reputation but for the safety of their software.
Your first sentence is basically impossible. When reviewing code, your insight is always inferior to the person who wrote it. Often my code reviews consist of questioning the programmer on why they’ve done what they have, because I need their perspective as well.
You can’t do that with an LLM because it doesn’t really know why it did things.
And testing properly…? Nobody does that. LLM or human.
I disagree with this. Just reviewing the code is exactly what I mean by “properly being checked and tested”.
There are people/companies that just vibe code the hell out of their stuff without any review whatsoever. That’s not something I want to touch.
Just reviewing the code
I was warming up to this. It certainly is better than vibe coding, but I’ve started to see libraries [with this ai policy] push out bigger releases faster with bad ergonomics and unnecessary, undocumented breaking changes, because the ai quietly migrated the internal tests/examples.
Clearly, they’re reviewing large amounts with an eye on new features and they’re not thinking through ergonomics: spending time with it, writing it themselves, and seeing where the sticking points are.
Maybe if you’re using ai for the migration, then-- problem avoided, for now. As time goes on I could see it compounding and becoming a tangled mess that’s not only inaccessible to humans, but requires more and more compute to navigate than thoughtful, handcrafted code.
Personally I am okay with code being written by AI as long as it is properly being checked and tested.
I disagree.
The CEO is a prime example of management becoming a security and safety risk, which all engineers know is very dangerous. It is the same story as what caused the Challenger disaster.
I agree.
That CEO needs to step down, not just for their reputation but for the safety of their software.
I agree.
Say and do stupid shit, get stupid prizes.
Proton’s reputation has been getting shaky. First it was the poorly worded communication regarding support for Republicans. Then the privacy in question when they handed user’s data over to authorities. Now this.
How’s that for loser thinking, Andy?
Yen’s support for republicans wasn’t poorly worded. He explicitly said they are for the little man while the democrats are for big business and praised one of trumps cabinet picks.
He’s a piece of shit. Nothing about that was poorly worded.
It was poorly worded because he was meant to target a specific portion of something about antitrust. What he ended up doing is blatantly supporting something a Republican brought up. I guess he couldn’t have found someone within spitting distance that wasn’t Republican and also supported antitrust. Don’t know how, but that’s how short-sighted Andy is.
So… he meant to lick some boots while maintaining optics, but he ended up fucking himself with a red hat?
There was something before that about providing a journalists data to authorities or something too.
After a Swiss court order, and they only could provide an IP adressen where the account was first made. Don’t spread partial information that doesn’t reflect wat happened.
I think I was pretty clear I didn’t know the full details in my comment. Besides, I don’t see what is misinformation here. And IP address is a user’s data.
Do share how much data they could actually provide
Don’t forget about Proton sponsoring Nazi YouTubers.
Is Andy Yen the asian version of Johnny Cash?
Fuck, that got me.
Shit that made me laugh out loud and my fiance is asleep in the next room
No he’s the Asian version of Eddie Money
When someone shows you who they really are, believe them the first time. And sadly, this is who Proton is right now, this guy. And this is who the Proton board is, people who support this guy and his vision.
This is proton. Shop accordingly.
The original 404 Media article.
404 Media is a great publication with a strong track record. They are worth paying for.
I already cancelled a couple of years ago when this same man posted a pro-Trump comment. That seems to have been forgotten about, some people dismissed it as just a comment, I’ve even been downvoted since for trying to warn people, and now look.
Same. Andy the chameleon slowly but surely revealing to be exactly the person he showed us he is. I believed him the first time.
That, plus the fact that they hand over data to cops with no warrant, and now this… I made a Tuta account until I can figure out self hosted email. Proton was supposes to be the good version of Google.
Yeah, I canceled my sub. I have no idea if the CEO of my new email provider is any better, but I know that Yen is abusive to his employees, and that matters to me. I know he’s deep in the throes of AI psychosis, and that makes me not trust him at all. I’m gone.
The services I use could be run by child-raping centaurs for all I know. But they keep their mouths shut and stay in the shadows. Ignorance is bliss.
Certainly hoping the child-raping centaurs aren’t running my email server… but I think there’s a little more here than blissful ignorance. I think it matters that, even if my new mail CEO is as bad as Yen, he hopefully sees that he’ll be punished if he acts like Yen. Because I’m not the only one that has left Proton: I think Yen is really going to feel the heat. Hopefully that deflates the egos of other techbro overlords…
What did you end up switching to?
Ah okay. I considered that one but Tuta had double the storage for the same price, so I went with them.
Slagging off his employees, slagging off his customers. Real bright spark this guy.
This is terrible, but what is even worse is that they partnered with a Zionist Swiss university, that supports Israeli military and out criminal sanctions against students protesting against the genocide of Palestinians.
Oh ffs
Oh come on. Guilt by association for everyone that deals with the ETH Zürich.
Eh, everyone’s got their moral line they won’t cross, and it’s up to them to decide how many levels of association they’ll tolerate.
Look, as a vegan I know how hard it is to draw lines between people who choose to inflict unnecessary suffering and who merely don’t think much about that and live their lives as well as they can. If I would go with that zeal of the antizionist crowd I would expect everyone else to starve because almost nothing is “untainted” (and remain very opportunistic with my own consumption standards)
What zeal? I just posted information that for me is important in how I make a decision. Are you also against the BDS movement for pointing out companies that do business with a government committing genocide? As a vegan, would you buy (vegan) shoes from a company that also makes leather shoes, but only buys leather from a company that skins cows alive? Would you not tell people “Hey, this shoe company is getting their leather from a company that skins cows alive. Maybe avoid them?”, if you saw a post about that shoe company? (fyi, not that i think that anything that happens with animal factory farming is ethical)
I am not looking down on anyone in this post or calling them unethical for not focusing on this point. I understand that different people have different thresholds to take action and different things which are important for them. I don’t expect anyone to be perfect or to only search for untainted things. Just to try to do better for the world with their choices, wherever they can. I also know I am very privileged to be able to make the choices I have that align with my moral standards, and that a lot of people are not able to do that.
Since here it’s about a university, the comparison would rather be “would I buy vegan shoes made from a technology developed at a university that also partners with other universities in which – among many other things that happen in a university – also someone busies himself with skinning cows alive.”
And here I come back to my original response. Oh come on, how far do you want to go with a moral outrage with guilt by association?
With such a moral attitude, taken seriously, I would starve barefoot. But I don’t, and I also don’t suggest it to others. Veganism has a hard stance as it is. I would refrain from such a stretchy argument purely to protect the perceived sanity of the movement.
Antizionists quite regularly use these stretchy guilt by association arguments. that is the zeal I mean.
I understand where you are coming from. We have different thresholds to consider this an issue, and that’s fine.
My problem with ETH Zurich is not only the collaboration with the Israeli university, but also that thy brought criminal charges against students peacefully protesting their partnership with Israel. That to me shows that they support the Israeli genocide of Palestinians. That makes them guilty. Not by association, but by their actions.
Thanks for that. I am putting the facts as I understood out there, and stating my opinion on it. Not trying to force anyone to side with me.
You know someone’s value by the company they choose to keep, in my opinion.
They made the choice to partner with a university that supports genocide. No one forced them.
By that logic you probably also cancel anyone who uses Microsoft, because undoubtedly they also make business with Israel.
First of all, I am not cancelling anyone. I am choosing with my wallet which organization align with my ethical standards.
Unfortunately Microsoft has a stranglehold with M365, so I also have to be practical. But I do not do any business with Microsoft directly, and actually prefer organizations which also do not use Microsoft where I can. It’s the same with Amazon or Cloudflare for example. I do not do any business with them directly, but also it is impossible to avoid organizations that don’t work with them because they run most of the internet.
In the case of Proton, it’s an add-on to an add-on service which is not the core part of their business.
I feel this attitude of it’s all or nothing is very defeatist and is used as an excuse to not try to make better choices. Just because not all of my choices are 100% aligned with my ethical values due to the world we live in, it does not mean I should not make better choices where I can.
To me it looks like you apply standards rather arbitrary, not because the standards are reasonable in the first place, but to loudly proclaim your moral stance. Which is antizionist, and in the internet hardly distinguishable from its bigger sister antisemitism. And particularly the arbitration is a reason to suspect your comment has little to do with Protons CEOs stance towards AI, but much more with intoxicating everything with antizionist rhetoric.
How am i being arbitrary? How is it not reasonable to not want to give money to institutions that do business with people directly supporting the Israeli military?
Semitism is a religion, Zionism is a political ideology. Not every Zionist is a Jew and not every Jewish person is Zionist.
I have nothing against Jewish or Israeli people for that matter. In fact I fully support all the Israeli people currently protesting against the genocide.
I just pointed out an addition reason to move away from proton which matters to me. Is it not an important reason to you, then fine.
Hm let’s see. Do you support those same Israelis also should they succeed and want to continue to live in their own country?
It’s a bit surprising how many CEO’s express disdain for their users and employees.
When employees are reduced to an “input resource” number on a spreadsheet, and they sit insulated from user complaints, and likely surround themselves with sycophants, I suppose it’s inevitable.
Power corrupts, you can see it all around us once you start looking.
Power corrupts, you can see it all around us once you start looking.
Yes, but also the corporate world has a nasty tendency to promote psychopaths to CEO positions because they think a lack of humility is the same as competence.
It’s not just in the corporate world. Trump is a good example. He’s a complete douchebag and obviously has no clue about anything, but he somehow makes up for it with his extreme self-confidence.
The world is extremely complex, so it’s understandable that posers who claim to have figured it out are popular. I think many people even know that the guy they’re following is full of shit, but they can’t accept that they are victims of forces they don’t control or even understand, so they lie to themselves to at least feel a little bit of security.
They aren’t all bad though yet all of them generally get a bad rap because the internet accepts conspiracy theories as gospel. I’ve worked the tech industry for three decades now and will argue the middle management make up most of the psychopathic population per capita.
Well yeah but where do you think they get the CEOs from?
it’s a bit surprising how many CEO’s express disdain for their users and employees.
Not surprising one bit if you understand how Capitalism works. We are just tools of the bourgeoisie.
Those who’ve never known hunger, hate to share even a morsel or crumb.
It should be common knowledge but marketing and legal teams spend lots of money and time protecting them.
You mean PR department. Marketing department does market research and ads
No, I mean marketing the org. They own the brand. C-level activities directly impact brand so marketing works to mitigate impact.
PR department is propaganda department. When propaganda earned a negative reputation, Edward Bernays, the same person who wrote the book that coined the term Propaganda coined the term PR to replace it in an American corporate context.
In a lot of companies those roles overlap.
Its a great metric for a corporate job. Still into how they decide what features are built for their products, what gets priority. Best places I worked at always involved customer feedback in some way. Arrogant line go up places always chat about looking at competitors and feeling out the market.
Turns out when you build things customers want, they keep being customers. Who woulda thunk.
He’s literally why I never signed up with Proton. Bullett dodged.
Same, and a got a lot of downvote for saying I didn’t trust them. Custom domain + 1Tb nextcloud is my jam and really not that expensive.
Is it selfhosted
Same here. I am really getting tired of managing my exim4 setup, but since he made the trump comments I didn’t trust him or proton by extension.
This guy sounds like a Mini Musk and I hate Musk.
I am, once again, offering to take over as CEO of Proton.
My work focuses on nonprofit-stakeholder-government relations. Specifically how organizations mediate between state agencies and stakeholders. No agenda beyond aligning mission, vision, and values, and keeping it that way.
Reach out if you prefer that to help guide Proton somewhere other than the trash bin of distrust.
Ok it is yours good luck
Your confidence in my abilities is both recognized and appreciated.
I’ve heard enough. If I was on the board, you’d have my vote. ✅
Thank you virtual non-board member!
You’re welcome. 🤝🏾
