Andy Yen’s values are incompatible with Proton’s mission. He advocates for poor security practices, supports fascists, and he verbally abuses his subordinates. As such, I can no longer in good conscience continue to financially support a company with such terrible leadership.

Unfortunately for me, my subscription just renewed last month on a multi year plan, but it does give me time to browse for and experiment with alternatives.

If you’re able, I encourage you to do the same and cite Andy Yen as the driving factor for your decision. We can’t let these tech bro fascists destroy what little semblance of privacy we have left.

  • WhosMansIsThisEnglish
    102·
    16 hours ago

    I’m sure in a few days we’re going to hear about an all hands or internal memo where Andy apologizes for his “poor communication” and how hes “committed to being a better leader by being a better communicatortm”

    But how he communicates - his tone, his word choice, his inflection - is just an indictment of his character. I honestly don’t give a fuck about the kind of person he is. Mostly because selfishly, I don’t have to.

    The main issue is his ideas. The things he’s advocating for are fundamentally incompatible with a business whos only two value propositions are privacy and security.

    A.I. is surveillance tech. Period. Every interaction, from keystroke to window focus, is meticulously categorized, logged, and sent back to to a handful of people like Andy Yen; Who then use it to draw conclusions that reaffirm their own cognitive biases. Its a doom-loop for C-level execs that suffer from main character syndrome. Because surely, the only reason the company is successful at all is because of the CEOs hard work and business acumen and any perceived failures come from those lazy engineers that only think about going slow. Like losers.

    Im not the biggest fan of A.I. but theres a huge difference between asking it to help spot a difficult bug and using it to spy on your subordinates and determine their individual productivity rankings.

    Like, that guy seriously can’t be in charge of the privacy company. We’re fucked.