Plenty of CEOs are bullish on AI and have urged their employees to embrace it enthusiastically. A more unusual approach is to deride your workers as losers for not using AI enough. 

A new investigation this week from 404 Media shows how one CEO is reportedly not just pushing AI, but practically bullying his employees into using it to work more quickly. At Proton—the company behind the encrypted email service ProtonMail—the leadership team has become singularly focused on AI adoption, 404 Media reports, putting pressure on employees to write code with AI and move faster. 

In a recent Slack exchange reported by 404 Media, CEO Andy Yen suggested it was “bullshit and loser thinking” to spend a few days testing new code for security issues before going live. “Of course it’s possible to be fast and secure,” he wrote. “Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.” Another message emphasized, again, that “only losers think like that.”

Yen’s attitude toward his employees has made many of them fearful of expressing concerns about security vulnerabilities with AI-generated code. As one worker told 404 Media: “Whatever persona Andy [Yen] has out of Proton, he’s a straight up bully inside. He routinely breaks his little facade in Slack and calls people losers and stupid, often for stuff he’s paying them for.” 

To the outside world, Yen may appear more cautious about AI adoption, in line with what the public might expect from a privacy-first company like Proton.

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