Proton CEO tells staff to "ruthlessly smash" anything blocking AI adoption
Proton goes all in on using AI
Internal pressure at Proton: CEO Andy Yen set up an email address for employees to report anything slowing AI adoption, installed software tracking how much AI-generated code the company produces, and said this is the last year Proton will hire engineers at all — instead hiring only people who build with AI. The push comes despite engineers' security concerns, as 404 Media reports on the privacy company's AI reckoning.
In the last few months, Yen set up an email address for employees to contact if they come across anything blocking adoption of AI at Proton, so leadership can "ruthlessly smash everything that stands in the way of AI velocity."
- pron
Never mind the policy, why do tech CEOs have to sound like frat boys?
- 28304283409234
Damn I thought these were the good guys.
- gnabgib
Discussion (84 points, 36 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50289692
- nmeagent
Great. I have a lifetime account that I purchased a decade ago and now I'm going to have to find something else. Thanks guys, thanks for ruining everything.
- willio58
There’s going all in on AI adoption, then there’s what proton has done.
This is disgusting, full stop. Destroying any sense of trust in your company by allowing people to rat on others is going to bite them in the ass.
And all for AI, which ultimately is a tool that the largest portion of people already have adopted and those that haven’t often understand it’s the way forward anyway. Like instead of letting your people do this organically, maintaining trust in their org, you poison it instead. And for what? A few extra dollars in the bank? The greed is gross.
Not to mention the loss of customers/potential customers. I always thought proton was one of the good companies. That’s out the window with this news.
- senorrib
Time to find a new home for my email address.
- SamDc73
I wish they can offer LLMs though an API with some good privacy (not a UI) since i can't come across any
- mshish
Article seems somewhat one sided to me. The style of the CEO doesn't sound good, but there's no discussion of specific tooling, harnesses, and other automation they have in place. Reading the letter posted, it sounds like they've got more in place than the article implies but people have been resisting adopting.