Proton’s chief technology officer, Bart Butler, said in a meeting that 90% of the company’s code in October was written by AI, 404 Media reported on 29 October, citing audio it obtained. Multiple employees told the outlet that much of that code is written with Anthropic’s Claude.
Chief executive Andy Yen wrote toward the end of August that “This will be the last year that we hire engineers”, according to Slack messages 404 Media reviewed. This week the company told staff it would re-interview them about how they use AI, about two months later by our arithmetic.
Short explainer · Proton’s CTO: AI Wrote 90% of October Code
A vertical news Short narrated from this piece’s headline and opening line.
Business Pill · THE MODEL AND THE HARNESS
A short Business Engineer explainer on the difference between an AI model and the harness of tools and workflow around it. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Proton.
The key insight: 404 Media reported that Proton’s CTO said AI wrote 90% of the company’s October code, and that an internal document ties the push to an annual recurring revenue target Proton is not on track to hit; from CEO Andy Yen’s end-of-August message about the last year of hiring engineers to this week’s re-interviews is about two months, by our arithmetic.
404 Media said it spoke to eight current and one former Proton employees and reviewed Slack chats, meeting recordings and an AI manifesto written by the CTO. Proton is the Swiss company behind the encrypted email service Proton Mail and a suite of privacy and security products.
The outlet reported that Yen set up an email address for staff to flag anything blocking AI adoption, so leadership can “ruthlessly smash everything that stands in the way of AI velocity”, and that Proton installed software on workers’ computers that tracks how much AI code the company is generating.
In response to detailed questions, a Proton spokesperson “did not dispute any of our reporting or characterization of whatโs happening inside of the company”, 404 Media wrote. The spokesperson said: “In our determination to move fast, we have sometimes been too blunt or too slow in explaining ourselves to our people.”
404 Media reported on 29 October 2026 that Proton CEO Andy Yen wrote toward the end of August that this will be the last year Proton hires engineers, that CTO Bart Butler posted an AI manifesto last month, that Butler said AI wrote 90% of the company’s October code, and that staff were told this week they will be re-interviewed about AI use. The interval of about two months is our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
Highly recommended read.
Stop focusing on using LLMs to help you write better code.
Instead, focus on enabling the LLM to write better code faster.
I agree that skills like orchestration and systems thinking matter more than ever. I’d also add understanding how to constantly measure the effectiveness of those LLMs, automations, and workflows through rigorous evals.
AI researcher Elvis Saravia (@omarsar0) called it a highly recommended read on 30 October. He wrote that people should stop focusing on using LLMs to help them write better code and instead focus on enabling the LLM to write better code faster. He agreed that orchestration and systems thinking matter more than ever, and added that people should constantly measure the effectiveness of LLMs, automations and workflows through rigorous evals.
The Revenue Line Behind the Push
404 Media quoted an internal document: “Due to insufficient velocity”, Proton is not on track to achieve its annual recurring revenue target by the end of the year. 404 Media also quoted internal material describing Proton’s year-over-year growth as “far away from what the market today considers to be good”.
The document also said, per 404 Media: “By all metrics that matter, weโre an underperforming company.” That is the business lever in the story: management ties AI adoption to engineering speed, and engineering speed to the recurring-revenue target.
Yen told an employee in front of the channel: “If you are making the accusation that this is a financially driven decision and you donโt trust me when I tell you itโs not, then I think this might not be the place for you.”
The CTO’s Manifesto
Butler posted a self-described AI manifesto to Slack last month that told engineers “Your old job is gone”, 404 Media reported. It said that if the company did not fully embrace AI, that posed an “existential threat to the success of the mission itself”.
According to the outlet, Butler set out three changes: an engineer’s job is now to help LLMs write better code, faster; Proton needs to reach the point where most code is reviewed by AI rather than humans; and the company must “commit, as an organization, to the transformation that the moment requires”.
An internal Proton document seen by 404 Media approves AI for uses including processing financial data, drafting customer-facing responses on Reddit and LinkedIn, and writing code, “except when that source code contains information that would give immediate advantage to a competitor” or is related to “innovation or R&D [research and development]”.
The Security Debate Inside Proton
At the end of August an employee in the security Slack channel urged the company to take a few days to pentest newly written code before pushing it live. Yen replied: “Thatโs bullshit and loser thinking. Of course itโs possible to be fast and secure.”
Another engineer wrote in that conversation: “AI wonโt magically solve our problems, because security is low in our prioritization at present”. One employee stressed to 404 Media that engineers still strive to build in a secure way.
AI researcher Elvis Saravia, who shared the report on X, wrote: “Stop focusing on using LLMs to help you write better code.” He added that skills like orchestration and systems thinking matter more than ever, along with measuring LLM workflows through rigorous evals.
The Structural Read
As we read the 404 Media report, Proton’s leadership frames AI as a speed question: the internal document blames the missed revenue pace on “insufficient velocity”, and Yen’s email channel exists to remove blockers to “AI velocity”.
As we read the manifesto as 404 Media describes it, the engineer’s role moves from writing code to helping LLMs write it, with most review done by AI rather than humans.
As we read the security exchange the outlet quotes, the open question inside Proton is review: one engineer wrote that security is “low in our prioritization at present”, while Yen said it is possible to be fast and secure.
Andy Yen, Proton CEO, in the security Slack channel, as reported by 404 Media
“Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.”
Three Implications
FOR ENGINEERING HIRING Yen wrote that Proton will hire people to build things with AI instead of engineers, according to 404 Media.
FOR CODE REVIEW Butler’s manifesto says most code should be reviewed by AI rather than humans, the outlet reported.
FOR STAFF Proton’s email told staff the re-interviews about AI use are “consequential”, and current employees told 404 Media they may lose their jobs because of them.
The analysis argues that AI is now commoditizing human execution, and that “human execution was the assumption underneath all previous layers”.
As we read it, Proton’s reported shift from hiring engineers to hiring people who build with AI is one company-level example of that argument. The framework was published in March 2026 and does not discuss Proton.
What Is Not Established
Proton has not published the 90% figure or the manifesto itself; both come from 404 Media’s reporting, and the article’s readable portion does not say how the AI-code share is measured or what Proton’s recurring-revenue target is.
The reporting does not say how many staff will be re-interviewed or what the outcomes could be beyond employees’ reading that jobs may be at stake. Related coverage: Skydive’s $6,000 agent and Anthropic’s new Claude Ultra plan.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
Execution Fault Lines, Concentrated Demand, and Geopolitical Firewalls
This week’s issue: the AI build is not short of demand for its parts. It is short of cheap money, and its end revenue rests on a narrow base of large, often venture-funded buyers.
404 Media reported on 29 October that Proton’s CTO said 90% of the company’s October code was written by AI, much of it with Claude according to employees, and that CEO Andy Yen told staff this is the last year Proton hires engineers. An internal document cited by the outlet links the push to an annual recurring revenue target Proton is not on track to hit.
A note on sourcing. Everything about Proton comes from 404 Media’s article of 29 October 2026, which says it is based on interviews with eight current and one former employees, Slack chats, meeting recordings and documents; we read the article’s readable portion and did not contact Proton. Figures labelled our arithmetic are our own.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
