Why is the bottom line of this to work faster? I understand there’s a fear about “being left behind.” Being faster won’t stop you from being left behind. Unique insights and deliberate REAL improvements that benefit users will keep you relevant. Think about your audience. Proton is uniquely positioned, not because of how fast it deploys.
I pay proton for its privacy, security and separation from from large tech company’s dark practices.
This manifesto from the Proton CTO is framed as an opinion piece, which is insane. As a CTO your opinion shapes your technical policy. I hope this is truly an opinion piece that employees are able to disagree with.
This is an opinion on how to burn out your employees, chasing speed, which benefits your users in no way. It’s an opinion on how to cultivate a toxic environment that treats its employees like less than they are. It’s an opinion that feels so out of touch with what I pay for and what users care about.
AI is a tool, that people should have the freedom to use when it actually helps them work. Otherwise it can actually make things worse and slower. It isn’t magical.
Your employees aren’t robots treat them well. Or leave and vibe code piles of nothing really fast, if that’s your opinion.
> “Programming” is dead. Engineering is not, nor is expertise.
No, it isn't. I'm sorry but this coke-bender manifesto is hilarious.
Proton actively maps user accounts (sysadmins just look in) to IP addresses, e-mails, and shuts down journalist accounts because governments ask them to.
Use bittorrent for some Linux isos on their free service it'll DNS hijack your webpages to whine at you, aka they openly MITM you.
> But it is past time to commit, as an organization, to the transformation that the moment requires
My Proton Business subscription renews in February, and I'm on the fence.
All I want is a privacy-focused (ideally EU-based) groupware... Email, Calendar and some Shared Cloud Storage. I don't want Proton to move fast, I just want them to keep doing what I thought they were doing, and do that well.
Fastmail has been mentioned multiple times, but they only do email and calendar (good for them!). But after reading all about what Yen's been saying, I'm considering switching anyway and swapping Cloud Storage for a NAS.
What do you use as alternative? I came from Google Workspace and Office365, they are horrible. And I don't think Microsoft and Google have a different stance on AI than Proton.
Yeah I guess I stay with proton. I use drive, vpn, email (own domains), meet and their password manager. Seems I'd have to use individual providers for each of those, and manage a multitude of subscriptions.
"This is not the death of expertise. The LLM is fast. You are slow, but you carry with you a lifetime of experience, judgment calls, and understanding."
1) Does expertise atrophy if you are just a human-in-the-poop (I mean loop) for an extended time period?
2) How do junior engineers develop the so-called expertise if they have not gone through all the steps and suffered repeatedly?
On the privacy and security side:
1) Using AI to create apps seems to make them more vibey, less reliable and less secure ... at the same time AI has the ability to find bugs better than before. Feels like a paradox that will get resolved at some point in the future, but at the moment software "feels" like it's getting less reliable.
2) If I were a government, I'd be super excited to inject backdoors and subtle vulnerabilities via AI into proton. To use AI without a good strategy into a privacy organization is like having the fox guard the hen house.
Your point around juniors is interesting. Because as outlined for most companies it's all about money and now there's little immediate financial sense in developing talent because a senior developer who has what AI lacks can do it faster.
Hopefully instead we'll see smaller companies who traditionally couldn't afford a software development function give juniors a chance to develop before moving on.
> 1) Does expertise atrophy if you are just a human-in-the-loop
Well I guess you use the same technique as for muscle athrophy. I sit all day at work and and drive to places using machines, so my body athrophies due to lack of movement. We built gyms where you go to to fight that athrophy. And we invented jogging and hiking where you go to places without the intent to actually travel somewhere. Same thing applies: You will have to program without AI on projects, that are not your real end product to keep your skills in training.
> 2) How do junior engineers develop the so-called expertise if they have not gone through all the steps and suffered repeatedly?
Same as above. The training + education will take longer, we will have to create training products for the juniors to practice and gain experience. The products will not necessarily be used in production, but should only be seen as sparring rigs.
After ~10 years with ProtonMail I have gone back to hosting my own email and, with the help of Claude, I now have the email setup I've always wanted. I'm actually kinda glad now to have been forced to finally solve email for myself so, thanks ProtonMail, it was a good run.
Why is the bottom line of this to work faster? I understand there’s a fear about “being left behind.” Being faster won’t stop you from being left behind. Unique insights and deliberate REAL improvements that benefit users will keep you relevant. Think about your audience. Proton is uniquely positioned, not because of how fast it deploys.
I pay proton for its privacy, security and separation from from large tech company’s dark practices.
This manifesto from the Proton CTO is framed as an opinion piece, which is insane. As a CTO your opinion shapes your technical policy. I hope this is truly an opinion piece that employees are able to disagree with.
This is an opinion on how to burn out your employees, chasing speed, which benefits your users in no way. It’s an opinion on how to cultivate a toxic environment that treats its employees like less than they are. It’s an opinion that feels so out of touch with what I pay for and what users care about.
AI is a tool, that people should have the freedom to use when it actually helps them work. Otherwise it can actually make things worse and slower. It isn’t magical.
Your employees aren’t robots treat them well. Or leave and vibe code piles of nothing really fast, if that’s your opinion.
> “Programming” is dead. Engineering is not, nor is expertise.
No, it isn't. I'm sorry but this coke-bender manifesto is hilarious.
Proton actively maps user accounts (sysadmins just look in) to IP addresses, e-mails, and shuts down journalist accounts because governments ask them to.
Use bittorrent for some Linux isos on their free service it'll DNS hijack your webpages to whine at you, aka they openly MITM you.
> But it is past time to commit, as an organization, to the transformation that the moment requires
Replace this guy with AI.
Made a great use of my weekend to end my business subscription to Proton. This is the last straw.
My Proton Business subscription renews in February, and I'm on the fence. All I want is a privacy-focused (ideally EU-based) groupware... Email, Calendar and some Shared Cloud Storage. I don't want Proton to move fast, I just want them to keep doing what I thought they were doing, and do that well. Fastmail has been mentioned multiple times, but they only do email and calendar (good for them!). But after reading all about what Yen's been saying, I'm considering switching anyway and swapping Cloud Storage for a NAS.
What do you use as alternative? I came from Google Workspace and Office365, they are horrible. And I don't think Microsoft and Google have a different stance on AI than Proton.
There are some suggestions here https://www.privacyguides.org/en/tools/
Yeah I guess I stay with proton. I use drive, vpn, email (own domains), meet and their password manager. Seems I'd have to use individual providers for each of those, and manage a multitude of subscriptions.
"This is not the death of expertise. The LLM is fast. You are slow, but you carry with you a lifetime of experience, judgment calls, and understanding."
1) Does expertise atrophy if you are just a human-in-the-poop (I mean loop) for an extended time period?
2) How do junior engineers develop the so-called expertise if they have not gone through all the steps and suffered repeatedly?
On the privacy and security side:
1) Using AI to create apps seems to make them more vibey, less reliable and less secure ... at the same time AI has the ability to find bugs better than before. Feels like a paradox that will get resolved at some point in the future, but at the moment software "feels" like it's getting less reliable.
2) If I were a government, I'd be super excited to inject backdoors and subtle vulnerabilities via AI into proton. To use AI without a good strategy into a privacy organization is like having the fox guard the hen house.
Your point around juniors is interesting. Because as outlined for most companies it's all about money and now there's little immediate financial sense in developing talent because a senior developer who has what AI lacks can do it faster.
Hopefully instead we'll see smaller companies who traditionally couldn't afford a software development function give juniors a chance to develop before moving on.
> 1) Does expertise atrophy if you are just a human-in-the-loop
Well I guess you use the same technique as for muscle athrophy. I sit all day at work and and drive to places using machines, so my body athrophies due to lack of movement. We built gyms where you go to to fight that athrophy. And we invented jogging and hiking where you go to places without the intent to actually travel somewhere. Same thing applies: You will have to program without AI on projects, that are not your real end product to keep your skills in training.
> 2) How do junior engineers develop the so-called expertise if they have not gone through all the steps and suffered repeatedly?
Same as above. The training + education will take longer, we will have to create training products for the juniors to practice and gain experience. The products will not necessarily be used in production, but should only be seen as sparring rigs.
After ~10 years with ProtonMail I have gone back to hosting my own email and, with the help of Claude, I now have the email setup I've always wanted. I'm actually kinda glad now to have been forced to finally solve email for myself so, thanks ProtonMail, it was a good run.
Ah yes, let yourself become a meat proxy, embrace it, love it, you will surely become better this way!
It seems nothing is safe from enshittification.
How has proton enshittified? Honest question as I am a yearly proton business subscriber.
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