Why did Proton cancel the AI re-interviews?
Proton CEO Andy Yen canceled a set of nearly company-wide “re-interviews” on Friday that would have required employees to explain how they are using AI. Six current Proton employees and audio of a roughly two-hour all-hands meeting, both obtained by 404 Media, say the sessions were designed to judge whether staff were using the technology enough in leadership’s eyes, and that people could be fired if they fell short.
The reversal came one day after 404 Media published an investigation showing Yen pushing AI across the company, in some cases over security concerns raised by employees. In one exchange in the company’s security Slack channel, an employee urged Proton to spend at least a few days pentesting newly written code before pushing it live. Yen responded at the end of August. “Of course it’s possible to be fast and secure,” he wrote. “Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.” He added that the company should “stop lovingly handcrafting all our code and use AI more.”
The investigation drew on conversations with eight current employees and one former employee, along with Slack chats, meeting audio and an AI manifesto written by Chief Technology Officer Bart Butler. It described a company that differs sharply from the public image of Proton as a firm carefully guarding privacy. According to the reporting, Proton is moving ahead with AI in large part to increase annual revenue. The investigation also described a culture of fear. Employees said they had real concerns about security, or about being asked to build security-focused products with AI, but felt unable to speak up because Yen mocks or insults staff in front of their colleagues.
Proton users have also reacted sharply. Many criticized the company’s leadership on social media in the day after the investigation was published, and some explicitly called for Yen to resign. Many said they were canceling their paid Proton plans. The re-interview cancellation does little to address their main worry, which is what they see as Proton deprioritizing security.
An apology, and a promise to keep going
What did Proton CEO Andy Yen say about the cancellation?
Yen opened the all-hands meeting by addressing the criticism directly. “I want to acknowledge myself, personally, that there was a communication failure on my part,” he said, adding that many things “could and should have been communicated differently.” He also said he would have to reflect on the issue and improve over time. He then made clear the company’s direction was not changing. “So what does that mean going forward? Going forward, I’m still going to push,” he said.
Yen said leadership had met over the past couple of days to discuss the re-interviews and had consulted the Proton board. “They’re closely monitoring the situation,” he said. Proton is owned by the Proton Foundation, whose board of trustees includes Yen, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Prof. Carissa Veliz, Dingchao Lu and Antonio Gambardella.
After those discussions, Yen announced the cancellation. “Well, I think actually in a, let’s say, unintentional way, they have actually already served their purpose,” he said. In his telling, the re-interviews had done their job because employees were now talking and learning about AI. Yen also referred to “org changes,” including “redistributing talent across teams.” He said the reorganization would happen next month, “but there will be no loss of jobs from AI.”
Butler said Yen “needs to, and he has committed to, doing better” in how he communicates with staff. “Using AI effectively and pragmatically does not mean that we’ve given up on security, or good architecture, or sound software engineering principles,” he said. Later, in response to an employee’s comments, Butler acknowledged the company had gotten it wrong.
Mixed reactions inside Proton
The AI manifesto Butler wrote and posted to Slack was blunt about what he expected from engineers. “Your old job is gone,” it said, according to 404 Media’s earlier reporting. It argued that not embracing AI posed an “existential threat to the success of the mission itself.”
How did Proton employees and users react?
Employees who spoke to 404 Media were divided on the cancellation. One said some colleagues were happy because it represented progress, while others believed nothing would change because there would be no consequences for Yen. That employee said they would have preferred “real accountability from the leadership team,” and argued that little could have been done to hold Yen accountable because he holds the majority of Proton’s shares.
Another employee said that even as the re-interviews were canceled, leadership said it still wanted to push AI, and that the things the re-interviews were meant to measure would become part of performance reviews. “They have said clearly the direction had not changed. As a Proton user that doesn’t reassure me,” that employee said. The same person said the re-interviews were not canceled until the matter became public, despite concerns raised by many staff. “I think it goes beyond communication issues and growing pains,” they said. “Right now, everything seems consistent with it being damage control.”
A third employee said they were “mostly happy with how this was addressed including by Andy [Yen].”
Proton did not respond to a request for comment. After the investigation ran, Yen posted a response on Reddit, where users downvoted it more than 1,200 times.
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