this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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Proton CEO Andy Yen gave a surprisingly sharp interview to the Swiss magazine "watson" (source in German: https://www.watson.ch/digital/wirtschaft/517198902-proton-schweiz-chef-andy-yen-zum-ausbau-der-staatlichen-ueberwachung). He warned that Proton might leave Switzerland if new surveillance laws are passed, which aligns with the company’s strong pro-privacy stance. So far, nothing unexpected.

However, Yen’s remarks about Swiss officials - describing them as lifelong bureaucrats, all lazy, and incompetent - came across as arrogant and out of place, almost like something you’d expect from a capitalism praising Trump supporter. he also was quoted in the interview, that the US works better (so they consider to move there?).

The interview left me speechless, and I’m certain I won’t be considering Proton for any of my future projects

Source

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I read the entire interview, and while it was a browser translation, I didn't get the same sense from it as OP. It reads to me like standard commentary from someone who works in secure services.

The comment about the US was more about the fact that they wouldn't have the same obligations to expose users or implement backdoors as what this regulation is asking, and that's true. The US is still (thankfully) supportive of E2EE services. How long that lasts is unknown, but it is still nonetheless true right now.

And calling the politicians lazy bureaucrats, etc.? I call Democrats stuff like that all the time.

He's said some other potentially problematic things, depending on how you read them, but this seems pretty innocuous and in line with what I'd expect from someone in his position.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

Bereaucrats being lazy is a common theme, for a reason. I don't get people who act like this isn't a well-known common issue, in pretty much any government.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

The comment about the US was more about the fact that they wouldn't have the same obligations to expose users or implement backdoors as what this regulation is asking, and that's true.

true true, not the same ones, different ones. like national security letters and warrants and the like

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'll never understand the hate boner people on the internet have for this guy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

He said he supported one of Trump's staff picks once and hoped the person would do a good job.

God forbid 🙄🙄

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean yeah, because that pick did have a good track record.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Andy said something positive that was vaguely related to Trump, that means he's bad now m'kay

Anyway, back to reality...

For those unaware, Gail Slater is the supposedly "controversial" Trump pick. She's done some good work it seems, and from what I've read about her thus far (not just on wikipedia), she takes a very objective and fact-based approach to her cases.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you go work for a Nazi, you're a Nazi.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

This is a thinly-veiled attempt at leveraging his past comments to make a normal boring interview seem like a firecracker. Disingenuous as fuck, from title yo body.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The person Andy claimed to support in his past comments is someone named Gail Slater. You should look into her career. She's very objective and fact-based.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago

Andy Yen praised JD Vance and Republicans, and attacked Democrats. He was unnecessarily and extremely partisan.

Since you didn't link to any of Andy Yen's comments, here is one.

https://archive.ph/quYyb

People are bringing up Gail Slater on behalf of Andy Yen here, pointing out she is objectively a megacorporate shill, though.

And yes, these are Andy's comments "accidentally* posted on the official corporate Proton account.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't see anything wrong here, calling bureaucrats lazy has absolutely nothing to do with Trump. I call then all the time lazy and useless in my country.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

In the US at least, federal employees are non-political employees who have protections against getting randomly fired, so a new politician can't replace the entire workforce with loyal idealogues. Federal employees earn less income than workers in the private sector, but do it for the sense of purpose and the stability.

Insulting bureaucrats as "lazy" on the whole is the first step to removing those protections, and going back to the world of Andrew Jackson and the robber barons, before these rules existed. Where the regulators can be fired for any reason and replaced with staff that are friendly to business, or not replaced at all. This led to huge wealth disparities, deregulation, a global depression, and the wealthy mostly remained unarmed.

So while calling government workers "lazy bureaucrats" seems harmless, in the USA at least it is part of an influence campaign to dismantle and despoil the government.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think you are stretching they have protection here too that does not mean we can not criticize for bad work. How is calling them lazy a step removing those protection? People should call out those abuse their position being able to do so is good and democratic. Only by calling out the problems of a system that system can be improved, staying silent and ignoring the issues is problematic not calling them out. That does not mean everyone should be fired for any reason, it mean there is room for improvement.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm just saying, people have been claiming our warnings are "stretches" for the past 10 years here in the US, and look where we are now

Edit: if you want to criticize bureaucracy, be specific. Don't just slander bureaucracy as a whole because they're lazy or something. It breeds anti-intellectualism

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You are warning about the wrong thing though being able to criticize the government or federal employees is a fundamental right of democracy.

But they are lazy at least in Europe they are it is very specific they are lazy and do not want to work, not all of the but many.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Voting trump into power so he can gut your administration is also a fundamental right of democracy, I'm just saying he careful with that type of rhetoric

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That is something totally different. Seriously I do not understand the problem. You should worry about the opposite, not being able to expression your opinion that leads to dictatorship. Being able to call them out for being lazy should not be something people should be afraid of.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Trump has been going after the deep state and saying drain the swamp since 2015 or so. Really this just means eliminate the bureaucracy and replace it with loyalists and corporatists. Step 1 to that process is sowing doubt on the bureaucracy. I'm not saying that it should be illegal to criticize bureaucrats.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But that has nothing do with the comment Andy Yen made. The reason he probably he made this comment is because he frustrated with bureaucracy like many other people daily are. We need to be able to separate valid criticism from the madness that Trump is. Else this is going to turn into witch hunt where everyone who says or does something with minimal similarity to Trump is labeled a Trump loyalist.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Well, he is speaking the same language. Paraphrasing, he says "they are bureaucrats who don't understand business," as if removing the bureaucrats will solve his problem. Throw in business owners instead of bureaucrats and you will have the same laws being proposed as soon as their profits are threatened. If he would have stopped speaking before that point, I would mostly agree with him. Switzerland has an advantage in privacy laws, and they are throwing it away. It's also worth noting that he is phrasing all of this in terms of revenue and expenses, as if he doesn't believe the fundamental right to privacy will make a strong argument to his audience. That is the real problem here, thinking we can just treat everything like a business.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I give up, personally I think he 100% right in what he is saying bureaucrats are the problem and should be removed not with loyalist but with compent people. seeing that people down vote me makes me sad and I fear people can't judge clearly anymore between valid government critism and what Trump is doing. But it is how it is. I will not continue this conversation. I hope this will not turn into a witch hunt but I am afraid now that it will.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

This has nothing to do with the US. It's an interview in the Swiss media, of a Swiss-based company.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Such a shame to see what seemed like a great alternative to Gmail under such management.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Yeah, fuck that guy for

checks notes

Hating bureaucracy like the rest of the world!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm using Proton and considering divesting. What are good alternatives without US ties?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't think there's any all-in-one services like Proton. [email protected] has a few suggestions, https://european-alternatives.eu/ has others. You'll likely have to piecemeal things if you had the full Proton suite.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I'm only using the email though so it is not a hard transition.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

Then Tuta or Mailbox.org are often recommended. I use Tuta + Addy.io to give me a bunch of aliases, though if you pay for one of the mail services, they both give you a number of aliases, too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Only using one company per service is probably the wisest option, regardless of which company it is!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

a good alternative to protonmail for secure encrypted email communication is Delta Chat: https://delta.chat/

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I hope that this is only a few misguided bureaucrats of the ÜPF, who wake up and notice that they make a big mistake.

I've only skimmed but it seems he's only angry at specific bureaucrats. I don't see anything too outrageous.

I suspect that computer scientists have a tendency to believe that all complex problems can simply be broken down into many small parts and solved once and for all. But that is because they enjoy thinking that way for writing code or solving computer problems, and they are not educated at all in sociology, economy, psychology or political science. There are those who seek power above anything else - and that is why we can't have nice things or simple solutions.

He does come across a bit like a libertarian nutjob as if it's up to the "captains of industry" to fight crime and care for the well-being of people. Except of course about the surveillance area he is right, the surveillance state has always and will always overreach. And organized crime and terrorists can always circumvent legal means of surveillance by faking or stealing identities.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (13 children)

Glad I went with Tuta mail.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

i don't understand why the proton board doesn't sack him

i also don't understand why he's praising a surveillance state like the us which is currently deporting people because they're critical of foreign governments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

source: [removed]

I assume this is poster's seelf deletion because otherwise more of the post would be gone including title and creator. is this a smear campaign?

I mean, things we have seen in the past does not inspire a lot of trust, but what is this?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

On my side it's

Post is awaiting moderator approval.

I don't know exactly what that means, but it doesn't appear like the person who wrote it meant to delete it, or avoid criticism about it

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I left to Tuta when he got unnecessarily political last time, and it's been pretty great.

Also, they just dropped a calendar widget yesterday ;)

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Anyone still using Proton deserves to get got when they go full mask off

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

If someone uses Proton happily in 2025, they are giving money to a Nazi enabler. If they refuse to change, I refuse to consider them a good person.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

That source is literally scrapping an empty pot for nothing

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