Tech • AI • Robotics • Game
Our politicians are sabotaging European tech’s only advantage - Andy Yen, CEO of Proton
7/10TL;DR
Proton founder Andy Yen says the fight over digital privacy is shifting from government surveillance alone to a broader battle against data-hungry tech platforms, with Europe facing a strategic choice over sovereignty, regulation and talent.
KEY POINTS
Privacy as a safeguard
Yen argues privacy is not mainly about hiding illegal activity but about protecting people if the definition of illegality changes. He points to Russia and Hong Kong as examples of how rights such as protest and free expression can disappear quickly, turning personal data into a liability.
A response to surveillance capitalism
Founded about 12 years ago, Proton was built to offer encrypted alternatives to mainstream online services such as email, calendar, cloud storage and documents. Yen says the larger danger is often not intelligence agencies but corporations, because firms like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Meta already hold vast stores of user data that can be accessed through legal requests or exploited commercially.
Scale without venture capital
Proton now has about 100 million users and says it is profitable despite avoiding the typical Silicon Valley model. The company began with roughly €2.5 million, including crowdfunding and EU support, and has no venture capital on its cap table. Control sits with a foundation, a structure meant to prevent future pressure from outside investors and preserve the company’s privacy mission.
Why Switzerland matters
Proton stayed in Geneva after its founding rather than moving to San Francisco, citing local institutional support and a more suitable legal environment. Yen sharply contrasts Switzerland with countries such as France, where he says broad data-retention rules effectively require providers to log user activity for months, despite repeated objections from the European Court of Justice.
Encryption under political pressure
Requests from governments remain a constant issue. Yen says Russian authorities sought access to Proton user information and demanded local servers; the service refused and was banned. He also warns that European proposals often described as chat control would weaken encryption by forcing services to scan private messages, a move he compares to mass surveillance.
AI deepens the data problem
Yen describes AI as a major accelerant of profiling. Chatbots and assistants can infer far more about a person than web-search histories ever could, because they capture intimate discussions about health, work, relationships and behavior. Proton recently launched a free tool called AI Paper Trail through Lumo, designed to show users how much can be inferred from their chat histories.
Competition with Big Tech
The company says digital markets remain tilted toward dominant US platforms. Yen argues it is inherently anti-competitive that users may need a Gmail account to download a rival app from the Google Play Store, while app stores also collect commissions that can exceed 30% before additional spending on cloud, advertising and software infrastructure. He says ongoing legal challenges will test whether those practices breach competition law.
Talent as the decisive factor
For Yen, the first 10 hires often determine whether a startup succeeds. He says many European founders underestimate how hard it is to attract elite engineers in Silicon Valley, where compensation can exceed $500,000 a year and quickly dwarf an entire seed round. By contrast, he argues, Europe can offer strong quality of life and enough access to talent if companies are built locally.
A European opening
Yen believes distrust of American tech is growing across Europe and North America. He cites signups in Denmark doubling this year amid geopolitical tensions and growth in Canada rising by about 30% to 40%. He compares the current shift in digital habits to the gradual adoption of electric cars: slow at first, then increasingly obvious as the downsides of the old model become harder to ignore.
CONCLUSION
The dispute over privacy is no longer just about encryption tools or intelligence agencies. It has become a wider contest over who controls data, platforms and technical talent, and whether Europe can build credible alternatives to the dominant US tech ecosystem.
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