Founder & CEO, Proton AG
Search every verified Andy Yen interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Andy Yen, co-founder and CEO of Proton, spoke at the Swiss Growth Stage Summit 2026 in Lausanne on September 16, 2026, in a fireside chat moderated by Bolko Hohaus. During the discussion, Yen addressed the Swiss startup ecosystem, noting that increased competition from American funds has raised the bar for local investors, who he said must offer more than capital to attract entrepreneurs. He also credited lessons learned from other founders as more valuable than advice from traditional advisors. Yen commented on Proton's potential initial public offering, stating that the company would likely list during a bear market rather than the current bull market, and suggested interested parties should revisit the topic at the next recession. He also described AI as potentially the biggest disruption of his lifetime, saying that society and business leaders are not ready for its impact, and that he is pushing for aggressive AI adoption at Proton to help employees stay ahead of the change.
Andy Yen, Co-Founder & CEO of Proton, talks with Bolko Hohaus about Proton's journey: building a global privacy-tech company from Switzerland, raising capital, and what it takes to scale internationally. Swiss Growth Stage Summit 2026 - Scaling Swiss Innovation Globally 16 September 2026, Lausanne, Switzerland
This episode is a special fireside chat recorded live at A3F 2026 in Zurich with Andy Yen, founder and CEO of Proton. What started as a project by scientists and engineers from CERN has grown into one of the world's leading privacy-first technology companies, serving more than 100 million users globally across email, VPN, cloud storage and security products. In this conversation, Andy shares the remarkable story behind Proton, why almost no investors believed in the company in the early days, and how a crowdfunding campaign helped turn an ambitious vision into reality. He also reveals how Ap…
(P01) (INCYBER) Sommet d’ouverture- L'Europe, à l'épreuve de la puissance 🚀Forum INCYBER Europe 2026: le rendez-vous européen de la cybersécurité et du numérique de confiance Le Forum INCYBER est l’événement incontournable en Europe pour échanger sur la sécurité numérique, la confiance et l’innovation. Une rencontre unique entre acteurs publics, privés, académiques et institutionnels : entreprises, éditeurs, consultants, forces de l’ordre, agences gouvernementales et universités. 📅 Prochaine édition : 9-11 mars 2027. Réservez les dates dans votre agenda dès maintenant ! 🔗 Restez connecté…
Andy Yen is the CEO of Proton, the encrypted email and privacy software company. Yen joins Big Technology to discuss how AI is supercharging Big Tech's ability to surveil us and what we can do about it. We especially cover Proton's 'Born Private' program, which lets parents reserve a private email address for their kids for $1, and why the login-with-Google button is one of the most underappreciated privacy threats online. Hit play for a clear-eyed look at the hidden costs of Big Tech's AI ambitions, and what a privacy-first alternative actually looks like. You can sign up for a Born Private…
🟣 AMLD Intelligence Summit 2026 www.appliedmldays.org
📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- AI is becoming the most powerful surveillance machine ever built and most people are feeding it their deepest secrets without realizing who can read them. Proton founder Andy Yen joins Bankless to explain how Big Tech captures your identity, why AI chat logs are a privacy disaster waiting to happen, and what a self-sovereign, user-aligned future could look like. We explore how AI models profile you, why subscription business models don’t guarantee privacy, how Proton built Lumo without retaining user da…
Andy Yen, founder & CEO of Proton, explains what it's like for a European company to take on Big Tech. From leaving CERN as a particle physicist to building one of the world's most trusted privacy companies. He breaks down VPN industry lies, how Apple and Google's 30% tax inflates your bills, and Europe's trillion-dollar tech mistake. ------------------ Show notes: Proton on X/Twitter: https://x.com/protonprivacy DH Lawrence's Relativity poem: https://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoe... Simon Migliano, Top10VPN: https://www.top10vpn.com/about/vpn-ex... Proton Foundation: https://proton.me/found…
“If Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and the big banks decided to gang up on Proton, they can still do the same thing to us today, right? So from that moment to today, I think I've always been the advocate of how can we get this powerful concept [Bitcoin] that enabled Proton to survive 10 years ago and make it more widespread and make it more common? Because I think the future of business, democracy, freedom, it really depends on this.” On this Bitcoin Talk episode of THE Bitcoin Podcast, Walker talks with Andy Yen, the CEO and Founder of Proton. Not only does Proton offer encrypted email, VPN, file…
I sit down with Andy Yen, founder and CEO of Proton, to discuss the release of Proton Wallet, the decision to focus on Bitcoin despite its lack of privacy, why they don't accept Monero, and much more. More about Andy: Andy's guest profile -- https://optoutpod.com/guests/andy-yen/ More about Proton Wallet: Website: https://wallet.proton.me/ Launch blog post: https://proton.me/blog/proton-wallet-... Bitcoin via email primer: https://proton.me/support/wallet-bitc... Supporting Opt Out: Donations -- https://optoutpod.com/donate Leave a review on your favorite podcast…
Andy Yen is the founder and CEO of Proton, one of the fastest growing consumer tech companies in Europe. Mozilla’s Rise25 series follows the game changers who are shaping our digital future. In this episode, Andy talks about launching Proton, the importance of data protection and creating his own lane in the tech world. 👉 Subscribe: / @mozilla 👉 Series playlist: • Rise25 | Mozilla 👉 Learn more about Mozilla's Rise25 awards: https://rise25.mozilla.org/ 👉 Check out Proton on YouTube: / @protonag
Unlike other tech companies, the story of how Proton was started is neither conventional nor makes any business sense. In this interview with CEO Andy Yen, he explains the heart behind the privacy and security products that Proton Privacy offers today. ▶ Get privacy by Proton here: https://www.allthingssecured.com/yt/p... Or you can learn more about different Proton products here: ▶ ProtonVPN: • ProtonVPN Review (watch this before you tr... ▶ Proton Mail: • ProtonMail vs Gmail...is secure email wort... ▶ Proton Pass: • Should You Use Proton Pass Password Manager? If y…
Privacy has become a precious commodity. It is often at odds with the pervasive nature of surveillance. Tech giants and governments alike have harnessed the power of technology to gain unprecedented access to personal data, raising concerns about individual privacy and the health of democratic societies. To examine this complex issue, I sat down with Andy Yen, the Co-founder and CEO of Proton, a privacy-focused company behind Proton Mail, to discuss the implications of the surveillance society and the urgent need for safeguarding user privacy. Check out the Forbes article https://www.forbe…
“As an engineer myself, what I can say is AI is, and this is not an exaggeration, I actually think it's the biggest disruption that is probably coming in our lifetimes. And a lot of us don't even realize how much things are going to change. Actually, I was a mathematician originally because that's part of physics. And if I look at how AI has transformed math, that's going to happen in every other industry as well. So,”
“I think the best time to list is not in a bull market like today, but actually in a bear market. So, when would Proton potentially list? Let's say at the next recession, at the next bear market, come find us. And then we'll come on the market then. I don't want to come in at the top and just get crushed for 10 years. That's what happened to people in 2021. I think that was really stupid. So, find me at the bear marke”
“I think there's a 55% chance we stay, 45% chance we get forced out. And this is not something I want to do, but just to be clear. I am fighting like crazy to be able to stay.”
“If we think trust, security, and privacy are the things that are going to make us strong and compete in tech in the future, well, then the current proposal for an ordinance that is coming out of Bern to essentially enforce tech companies like Proton to engage in mass surveillance of people who are not under suspicion of committing a crime, that is incompatible with the vision of doubling down our competitive advantag”
“The systematic process of American tech companies really colonizing our economies here in Europe has something that's been going on for more than 20 years. It happened before Trump, under Biden. It was already happening even under Obama. It's been long-term US policy through economic coercion actually to take over a significant portion of our market when it comes to digital goods.”
“The business model of these platforms is to exploit the data of our children. This is what they are all about. And in some sense the guard rails are running counter to their business interest. And we have seen historically that when there's this collective of interest between what is good for the business and what is good for society, uh we know the choice that Zuckerberg is going to make. We know the choice that Goo”
Sign in to search the full transcript archive, filter by topic, and access every quote from Andy Yen.
The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →
Pro unlocks every transcript in full, plus unlimited search across every executive and company we cover.
50% off appliedPulling data at scale? The Data API gives you 30,000 transcripts a month over REST, MCP and JSON.
Compare all plans