Proton Re-Interviews Staff on AI Use; the Code Has a 90% Head Start
A consequential round of AI-use interviews follows the CTO's reported claim that AI wrote 90% of Proton's code in October. One engineer had already asked for time to security-test new code.
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Proton's AI program has reached the interview stage. The company plans to re-interview some employees about their AI use; an internal email called the process “consequential.” 404 Media reports that the CTO said AI wrote 90% of the company's code in October, citing audio it obtained.
404 also reports that an engineer who asked for a few days to security-test newly written code was told by CEO Andy Yen that “only losers think like that.” In a later exchange about the interviews, Yen said Proton already knew who was behind and “would not bother with this process” if it were giving up on them. A Proton spokesperson told 404 that some employees were anxious and leadership had sometimes been too blunt or slow to explain its plans.
So the code is being accelerated with AI, while its makers are called in to explain how well they have accelerated. Proton builds privacy tools; its employees' AI use now gets the opposite feature: a consequential interview. The machine has done most of the coding. Only the employee has to explain how it went.
Based on: Manifestos, Fear, and ‘Loser Thinking’: Inside Proton’s AI Reckoning, 404 Media, October 29, 2026.