THE RE-INTERVIEW

The story behind the cartoon

Proton CEO Andy Yen cancelled a series of nearly company-wide 're-interviews' at a Friday all-hands meeting, 404 Media reported, after its investigation into his AI push was published on Thursday. Employees would have had to explain how they use AI, with the clear implication that their jobs were at stake if they did not use it enough in leadership's eyes, according to six current employees and audio of the meeting obtained by 404 Media.

The investigation, based on conversations with eight current and one former employee, Slack chats, meeting audio and an AI manifesto written by chief technology officer Bart Butler, described a culture of fear around the AI push. In August, after an employee urged taking a few days to pentest newly written code before shipping it, Yen replied that the idea was 'bullshit and loser thinking' and told engineers to stop lovingly handcrafting code and use AI more; Butler's manifesto told engineers 'your old job is gone.'

The backlash was immediate: Yen's response on Reddit was downvoted more than 1,200 times, many users said they cancelled paid Proton plans, and employees told 404 Media the re-interviews were cancelled only once the story became public. Yen said he will still push AI, that the re-interview metrics will become a component of performance reviews, and that a reorganization next month will bring no loss of jobs from AI — a reassurance several employees called damage control.

The joke is the chair: the tiny robot gets the oversized executive seat and the paperwork, while the man who already does the job gets the small chair and has to prove, badge in hand, that he deserves to keep it. It is not an interview for a job. It is an interview for permission to keep the one sitting right behind him.

READ THE FULL REPORT — 404 Media ↗