Andy Yen - From CERN to 100 Million Users with Proton Mail | Alan Frei Podcast | A3F 2026

Never. Never.

Actually, I'm not sure that most people want inbox zero. Really? Yeah, like myself personally, it's it would be so annoying. I would feel anxiety if I had to do inbox zero. Oh, fantastic. So,

I was working, you know, at CERN and of course it doesn't make a lot of sense because what we actually built in a tech company is so far away from physics. But then if you think about like the World Wide Web coming out of CERN, it makes a bit more sense, right? In those early days, this is around 2014. This is about a year after Snowden. And Snowden really showed the world, 'Okay, you know, NSA government surveillance, this is a huge problem.' But then I'm thinking, 'Actually, I don't think the NSA knows so much about me.' Not yet. Right. But but even today, no. If I look at what Google or Facebook and these other companies know, they know way more. So, for me the problem was always sort of corporate surveillance.

And my thinking back then was if I want to have an existence online and to have any account any services, even an online identity, I more or less have to make this really terrible, really shitty deal with big tech companies who are giving my most intimate, sensitive information in exchange for being allowed to exist online. And that just seemed like a really bad deal. This is a big applause. Thank you very much for doing that, man. Thank you. Thank you.

So, I thought, this is a deal. There has to be like, you know, a better way to do it. And it's really funny that you had Steve here on the stage today because actually Steve and I go back, you know, quite early. You know, he mentioned he was one of the early supporters of Proton. You know, I can actually tell you maybe another early Proton story.

Back in 2014, when we were raising money, uh the pitch to the VCs, I guess there's some VCs out here, but you know, I'll tell you what the pitch was. The pitch was, 'I'm going to make people pay for a service that with the world's biggest tech company goes away for free, and I'm going to compete with them from Switzerland.'

Everybody said, 'You You're crazy, right?' And then I think, well, one of the first things that you want to do in a startup is to achieve product market fit.

Because the VCs were not keen, we said, 'Why don't we do crowdfunding?' So, we put it online. It was actually on Indiegogo and it was a, you know, give money to us support us. Now, that pitch was a lot better. I'll tell you what that pitch was. That pitch was, 'Please prepay for services that some PhD students who have never built a service may eventually deliver at some point in the future.' How much did you raise? Well, the absurd thing was, we raised actually half a million Swiss francs.

And one of the uh donors in that campaign was a guy sitting up here, Steve Wozniak. Really? So he was one of the very early ones. Yeah, Steve Wozniak gave us uh $997 uh in 2014. Uh and we sent him a t-shirt in in in in a in a exchange.

Well, I kind of you know today I'm often some based in Geneva, often times in Zurich and I talk to a lot of the younger entrepreneurs. Okay, people think I'm young but I'm actually a lot older than I look. You look super young. Maybe the two of us together, you know, who who put some of those Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Now as when I look at these startups today they have it so easy. You know, you just walk down the street and you can get like a 5 10 million seed round and it's like it's done. Like money is everywhere. It's so easy to kind of get by. But back in 2014 VC, especially here in Switzerland, it was like a desert. There were very few funds and they were probably willing to give you half a million Swiss francs for half of your company, right? That was like the best you could get for for seed fund back then. Uh so our generation of startups and there's actually probably three or four unicorns that came out of Switzerland in that era. We really had a very tough. It was uh month-to-month try to survive with very little money uh and you it was a constant struggle. Uh and okay, this is kind of a you know, sad story but uh back in those days we also got people paying us with Bitcoin.

Well well well this is the sad part of the story. There was you know, uh one month where we were so low on cash we paid the rent with Bitcoin. What was the price at the time? Well, going back, I could have bought the building now, right? But but but that but that was a sign of how tight it was. It was you were, you know, scrap you were scrambling for like the, you know, coins in the couch to try to make ends meet. Uh in 2015, yes, there was an era where it was like, well, we're not sure if we're going to make it, right? It was at this point. Now, today you would say, let's go from seed round to series A. Back then it was, let's go from, you know, having money to being broke cuz you couldn't just go out and get series A. It was not it was not how it all worked back then. Um and so it was difficult, it was challenging. We had to be super efficient. Salaries were very low. Uh the company was extremely frugal. But I think in the long run that became a strength. Did it mean that we were slower in the beginning? Uh yes, perhaps. But in the long run, what matters in a business actually is how effective you can execute. And if you grow up in a extremely resource-constrained environment, you become you you learn two things. You learn how to be extremely focused because focus is a matter of life and death. It's not a luxury. And number two, you learn how to be extremely effective. And that were the things that I think later on became a massive asset. And this is why among the core of startups that began, you know, 2010, 2014, that era, Yeah. uh there were some huge successes like yeah, Next Thing, uh Amazon, uh yeah, Sonar Source in Geneva as well, also Unicoin. They We all went through the same level of suffering that in the long run I think made better companies. So, you know, what doesn't kill you uh does make you stronger.

Yeah, it's a interesting question. The I think it's not a question of what we chose. You start your company wherever you are when you start the company. And I was working at CERN, so it started in the CERN cafeteria. That's just the logical place to begin, right? So, you know, the the first office No rent. The the the first office was a cafeteria. Um the more interesting question is actually why do we stay? Yeah. Uh yeah. And and of course, not just why do we stay back then, but why we're still trying to stay in and build the company here today. Uh I think there's kind of a two factors. Number one, uh the Canton of Geneva was actually very supportive. Yeah. So, they were there to clear all the administrative hurdles. I can give an example. I think I think a lot of Swiss people here will not understand, but do you know how hard it is to get a work permit as an entrepreneur who isn't uh Swiss? Really? Uh uh just cuz think about it. It looks like a scam, right? This person created a company, now he's applying for a work permit. Yeah. The company was uh created to get his permit, right? So, you know, having the support of the state to clear some of those hurdles, especially in Geneva, was was extremely important. And I think you know, they gave office space, they gave some advice. Uh so, that was a a very smart thing they did to anchor us in Switzerland, in Geneva. Uh but the other thing is also uh in the startup world, you can sort of be the I guess, you know, a small fish in a big pond, or a bigger fish in a smaller pond. And this is extremely important in talent. Let's say you go off off San Francisco, and we have people, you know, advisors, other you know, some people who invest and say, 'Hey, you got to go to San Francisco to succeed.' Well, then you're going to be competing against, you know, a thousand other companies who are probably better at marketing than you, have more money cuz they raised in American ecosystem, can outcompete you on talent, and are just more flashy. And there is so you might go out there and then you'll pay a huge amount of money, more expensive than what you are paying in Switzerland, for talent that actually is very mediocre. And then us in Geneva, well, if you want to work at startups in Geneva back in those days, you you really had two choices, right? It was either Proton or Sonar. After you you still effectively have two choices. Um and and that's actually great cuz you get all the talent from CERN, all the Swiss talent here as well. But then if I want to go to, uh you know, um if I find a really smart person from anywhere in the world, and I say, uh you know, 'Please come uh live in Switzerland.' That's an easy sell. They usually will agree, right? As So from that perspective, talent is the most important thing to grow a business, and you find the talent here, at least in the early, you know, startup phases. Uh scale-up phase is different, but at least in the beginning I think it's a good it's it's a great place. So, this sounds like Switzerland is heaven for startups, you know, building the companies here, great company, but what are like the disadvantages of Switzerland?

Yeah, well, I often say it's a heaven for startups and hell for scale-ups. And and this is going to sound a little critical, but uh let me give you maybe another perspective, right? Uh today if I wanted to grow the business from a hundred million users to a billion users, uh that's a completely different go-to-market motion. And can you name like even one Swiss company that I would poach talent from in order to take me on that journey that has already done it? Actually it doesn't exist. Are you putting me on the spot right now? No, no, okay. I'm saying it because it doesn't exist, right? I'm kind of I'm kind of I'll be the first try to do it. Now, you say, 'Oh, there's Google here.' but the people that do Google's real go-to-market, you know, activities that scale the business went it from 100 million to a billion, actually they were not in Zurich when that happened. The ones that came in Zurich were here after it had already got big. The ones that did it actually were in Silicon Valley in in the US, maybe possibly in London. So, the challenge I think scale is faced is to bridge the gap from startup to a massive global success. This almost requires bringing in talent from abroad. And if I were to today, you know, go and try to hire someone from the US to do something like this, and we do do this, the sales pitch again goes something like this. And remember, to give context, the US is a country where you can switch jobs in 2 weeks, 2 weeks notice, right? Please come work for my startup. Uh I will give you a work permit, maybe in 4 months, depending on how it goes. And assuming you get your work permit, I will also give you stock options cuz I can't pay you as much cash as, you know, what you're making currently in in Silicon Valley. Uh but I can't tell you how the stock options are going to be taxed because I need to get a tax ruling first. And the tax ruling will depend on the canton that you decide to live in when you come to Switzerland. And I have to get a different tax ruling for every single canton. Uh and I may get that tax ruling in 2 years or I may not. I have no guarantees, but please sign here and come work for us. It's it's effectively like, you know, it's a tough sell, right? Proton gets people cuz they really believe in the mission, they think we're going to succeed, they, you know, ideologically and philosophically aligned. So, I have it better actually than most of the other scale-ups here, but you can imagine how hard that is for, you know, companies that want to grow to attract that talent. And these are things that, you know, I think we need to try to fix. Scale-up hell, right?

We need to think what is our competitive advantage. Uh and maybe I'm a bit in a unique position to talk about this cuz I spent a third of my life, you know, in Asia. I'm Taiwan originally. Uh I did my education in the US, but now I've been 15 years, you know, living in Switzerland. So, I've seen sort of all three systems. And maybe we just if we want to be very blunt and honest, I give a couple, you know, ground truths, right? I'm a Taiwanese person. I can tell you right now uh Europe is not going to work as hard as the Asians. Uh it's it's a You can try all you want, but we're not going to 996 here, right? That's why I put you at the last spot because I knew you will bring energy. Well, you know, I'm at the last spot cuz I had to work the whole day today. Exactly. So, so so so you know, we're not going to a 996 here, number one. Uh number two, we're also not going to have the size of the market and the amount of funding that the US. And and let me tell you kind of it's it's it's a bit of a joke. It's actually a bit sad, right? But you know, in in Europe, the investor mindset is I'm going to invest a little, so I lose a little. Uh in US, it's I'm going to invest big to win big. Uh so it's it's a completely, you know, different mindset, right? So, so it's it's not going to work. So, then in that case, uh what is what is our edge? Yeah, what is it? And in technology, I actually think it's something which Switzerland is very strong in called trust. Uh and I'll do a quick kind of demonstration here. Uh how many people here in the audience uh use a AI of some sort? Okay, I'll keep your hands up. Keep your hands up. Uh uh how many of you trust Sam Altman? So, what you saw right here, this is the biggest economic opportunity for Europe in the 21st century. Because Europe can actually build digital services that are in fact trusted. We have the history, we have the legacy, we have the legal framework, and we have a trust that American and Chinese companies simply do not have. So, we have to lean into that. Uh and this is where we have to be very careful with regulation. Uh I think I think, you know, it's probably no secret to people in the audience. Uh Proton today has a bit of a dispute with a certain people in Bern. Uh let's put it that way. Um And and you know, uh and this is something that may force us to leave the country. But I I can't give you an example, but if we think trust, security, and privacy are the things that are going to make us strong and compete in tech in the future, uh 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 uh incompatible with the vision of doubling down our competitive advantage, right? If our privacy regulations and our surveillance regulations uh become worse than the US, it is worse than the US, by the way, uh and you force uh Swiss tech companies to do something that is, by the way, illegal in the EU, uh you are simply destroying the means for us to be competitive in in in the coming 10 years in tech. Uh and so, this is why, you know, we fight this, right? Now Now, if I'm put in a situation where I have to do things that European and US tech companies don't have to do, that's a huge problem. And you know, it it's it it it goes even worse than this. Uh this new regulation that that forces Proton to spy on, you know, all users, including the ones who are not uh subject under criminal investigation, uh you know what happens with Google? Google is actually exempt from this regulation. It's only applies to Swiss companies, not foreign companies operating in Switzerland. So, if you think about this, like we're kind of like the only country in the world that's dumb enough to make it less competitive for our own companies even within our own market. This is crazy. Thanks for the fight, man. So so so this is why we go to burn. This is why we fight because we're not fighting just for a company Proton, right? It's we're fighting actually for all the protons of the future that do not get created here if we destroy our sole competitive advantage in tech. Uh and given the demonstration that we just saw, if we win on trust, actually win the tech rate tech race. Tech today seems very complicated, very difficult, it seems so hard to build. But you know what? At the end of the day, AI and all these other tools, they're commodities. They will commoditize in the long run. And the brand and the trust will be the main competitive advantage that survives. There's really no difference between Google services, uh you know, Microsoft services or Apple services actually. It's a quality product. Uh it's the brand that matters. And what we're doing in Switzerland is we're destroying that brand in real time. Uh and so this is why we fight and this is why I think we need to be vigilant.