Proton's CEO called security tests 'loser thinking' — AI wrote 90% of its code

Proton chief executive Andy Yen told engineers in a company security channel to stop handcrafting code and use AI more, after an employee asked for a few days to penetration-test new code before it shipped — calling the request, in 404 Media's account of the messages, 'bullshit and loser thinking.'

The privacy company's reversal runs deep: AI use was once banned inside Proton, but its chief technology officer has now said AI wrote 90% of the company's code in October, much of it with Anthropic's Claude, and the company tracks how much AI code each employee generates.

Yen has also said this will be Proton's last year hiring engineers, and the company dropped planned AI-use re-interviews — which staff feared could decide their jobs — only after 404 Media's investigation, while Proton says it was sometimes too blunt, not wrong, about the push.