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404 Media: Proton CEO pushes AI-written code, staff re-interviews
404 Media, citing Slack messages, internal documents and nine workers, reported that Proton CEO Andy Yen is pressing engineers to ship AI-written code faster, while a company spokesperson said leadership had sometimes been too blunt.
- New headline Was: “Proton CEO pushed AI coding over security delays, 404 Media reports”
- Our desk updated its story
Swiss encrypted-email company Proton is pressing staff to adopt AI-written code and to sit for re-interviews about how they use the tools, 404 Media reported, based on Slack messages, meeting audio, internal documents and interviews with eight current employees and one former employee1.
The outlet said Proton CEO Andy Yen wrote in a security Slack channel at the end of August that delaying a ship for pentesting was loser thinking and told the team to use AI more rather than handcrafting code1.
404 Media said Yen also wrote that this would be the last year Proton hired engineers and that, starting next year, it would hire people to build with AI1.
The company earlier that week emailed staff that they would be re-interviewed about AI use, with language that the interviews were consequential, according to the report1.
Proton’s CTO, Bart Butler, posted an AI manifesto on Slack last month that told engineers their old job was gone and that most code should be reviewed by AI rather than humans, 404 Media said it reviewed1.
Butler said in a meeting that about 90 percent of Proton’s code in October was written by AI, much of it with Anthropic’s Claude, according to audio and employees cited by the outlet1.
An internal document obtained by 404 Media said Proton was not on track for its annual recurring revenue target because of insufficient velocity, described year-over-year growth as below what the market considered good, and called for an elite fast team with extra pay and weekend work1.
The same document, as described by 404 Media, said a six-hour outage in August showed engineering was not reliable enough and listed transforming the company from within as the realistic option versus moving to the United States or China or mass firing and rehiring in Europe1.
Employees quoted anonymously by 404 Media said they worried about using AI on security products and described reluctance to challenge Yen in public Slack channels1.
A Proton spokesperson did not dispute 404 Media’s account and said some people were unhappy or anxious, adding, “In our determination to move fast, we have sometimes been too blunt or too slow in explaining ourselves to our people”1.
The spokesperson also said Proton was committed to helping colleagues retrain, according to the report1.
404 Media said Yen later wrote in Slack that the company needed to know who used AI well, who misused it, and who had not used it at all1.
