this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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A second Andy Yen interview has hit the Web: Proton CEO gets needlessly political, again (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 month ago by LWD@lemm.ee to c/privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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Proton CEO Andy Yen gave a surprisingly sharp interview to the Swiss magazine "watson" (source in German: https://www.watson.ch/digital/wirtschaft/517198902-proton-schweiz-chef-andy-yen-zum-ausbau-der-staatlichen-ueberwachung). He warned that Proton might leave Switzerland if new surveillance laws are passed, which aligns with the company’s strong pro-privacy stance. So far, nothing unexpected.

However, Yen’s remarks about Swiss officials - describing them as lifelong bureaucrats, all lazy, and incompetent - came across as arrogant and out of place, almost like something you’d expect from a capitalism praising Trump supporter. he also was quoted in the interview, that the US works better (so they consider to move there?).

The interview left me speechless, and I’m certain I won’t be considering Proton for any of my future projects

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[–] falseprophet@fedia.io 23 points 1 month ago (14 children)

I don't see anything wrong here, calling bureaucrats lazy has absolutely nothing to do with Trump. I call then all the time lazy and useless in my country.

[–] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 month ago (13 children)

In the US at least, federal employees are non-political employees who have protections against getting randomly fired, so a new politician can't replace the entire workforce with loyal idealogues. Federal employees earn less income than workers in the private sector, but do it for the sense of purpose and the stability.

Insulting bureaucrats as "lazy" on the whole is the first step to removing those protections, and going back to the world of Andrew Jackson and the robber barons, before these rules existed. Where the regulators can be fired for any reason and replaced with staff that are friendly to business, or not replaced at all. This led to huge wealth disparities, deregulation, a global depression, and the wealthy mostly remained unarmed.

So while calling government workers "lazy bureaucrats" seems harmless, in the USA at least it is part of an influence campaign to dismantle and despoil the government.

[–] loics2@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

This has nothing to do with the US. It's an interview in the Swiss media, of a Swiss-based company.

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