Is It Worth Switching To Encrypted Email And Messaging? — With Andy Yen

Andy Yen is the CEO of Proton, the maker of encrypted email service ProtonMail. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the merits of encryption, why his service has doubled over the past two years, and whether it’s something we actually need. This episode gets into a fun debate, covering both the pros and cons of the movement. If you like Big Technology Podcast, please rate it five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  This episode is brought to you by Genesis. What does it actually take to put Agentic AI to work across an entire enterprise? I recently spoke with Genesis chairman and CEO Tony Bates about why orchestration is emerging as a competitive advantage in customer experience and what companies need to get right in the AI era. Then I sat down with Adam Mitchell, head of enterprise business solutions at Voya Financial, to go inside a large-scale Agentic CX transformation, including the business decisions, trade-offs, and lessons along the way. You can watch both conversations now on my YouTube channel today. It's never been more challenging to get frontier compute. How do you know where to look, who to trust, or how much to pay?

• 0:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Akash is an open cloud that provides easy access, flexibility, and peace of mind. That's how companies like Razer were able to cut their inference cost by 15 times. Visit akash.network/alex for a free consultation. That's akash.network/alex for a free consultation.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  LinkedIn Presents.

• 1:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed, who wants conversation of the tech world and beyond. So why isn't all of our online communication encrypted? I mean, there are some good reasons not to do it, especially when it comes to things like online safety. But also, maybe we've gotten just a bit too comfortable with letting companies and governments just kind of look through all of our most private conversations. So it's end 2022. Let's bring on Andy Yen. He's the CEO of Proton, which makes the encrypted email service Proton Mail. And it's a product that's expanding, actually, into things like docs and calendar, wink, wink, Google. And it's also seen its user base basically double over the past few years, past two years, really. So as you listen, I would ask you to consider, why would we want this?

• 2:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Why would we want an encrypted email service? What are the benefits that we have from it? What are the benefits we get for keeping everything open? It's not an easy interview. It's pretty tough, actually. And I didn't just want to let Andy walk into the end zone, but I think by pressing him a little bit, we really start to put these arguments for encryption to the test. And hopefully, by the time you finish listening, you'll come away with a better understanding of where this push and where this movement is and whether we should get on board or not. So I hope you'll enjoy. Here's my conversation with Andy yet. Andy, welcome to the show.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  Hi, thanks for having me. It's good to see you again.

• 2:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  Good to see you again. So for those who are new to Proton or have just a vague idea of what it is, what is Proton Mail?

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Well, I think Proton is a company that is trying to offer the same services as, say, Google, Apple, or some of the other big tech companies you might know, but with a different business model. We simply believe in putting privacy first, giving you control over your data. And we do that by having rigorous encryption across all of our services. So whether it's Proton Mail, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, or our Proton VPN service, what Proton is, is an alternative to big tech services that really puts you in control of your data.

• 3:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, great. And so can you give like just a 101 definition of encryption? Maybe you can do it like in 30 seconds or so.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  This is a tough one. Well, I think encryption is a complicated topic to explain, but it's math. And the rules of mathematics are kind of constant over time. Once they work, they work. I think what is more valuable to explain is what encryption does for you, right? So when we talk about end-to-end encryption, which is what Proton uses in all of our services, take Proton Mail, for example. End-to-end encryption, what it does is ensure that we, as a service provider, don't have the ability to read your emails and read your data. And that means I cannot sell your data to advertisers. And I can also not give your data to, say, third parties like governments that may request it. So it's a technical means to ensure the privacy of your communications.

• 4:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  So Andy, I use Gmail. I view email kind of as a postcard, right? I send it. I'm fully aware that people can, you know, potentially read it. I don't want the federal government snooping in or any government snooping into my email. But it's not like I have like, you know, state secrets in there. And I don't mind if it's something like a Gmail advertises to me. So I feel like that's how most people feel. That's why I see most of the emails, at least, you know, that come into me are Gmail when they're not corporate. So why would someone go with a encrypted email service over that? Like, I guess, it seems like it's a lot of effort to switch. So why would someone do that?

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Well, I think the question is, you know, why should we accept the status quo, right? You're right. Email is a postcard, but why should it be a postcard? Now, the technology to make email not a postcard definitely exists. You know, the encryption is possible. So if you have the choice between sending postcards versus sending encrypted sealed letters, why would you choose the postcard option? And that's really what Proton is about, is to give people this alternative. And, you know, actually switching is not very hard. If you want to use Proton now today, we have an easy switch tool. You can actually, you know, log in with one click, putting your Gmail information.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  And it'll pull, thanks to, you know, GDPR, your contacts, your emails, your calendar from Google directly to the Proton ecosystem. So in fact, it's not hard to switch. And I think we shouldn't be so accepting of the status quo that emails have to be, you know, postcards. We must have advertisement in order to get email. And we need to let Google have access to all of our information just to be online. You know, this is, I guess, if you have no choice, you would live with that. But if there is a choice, I don't see why anybody would tolerate that.

• 6:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, I'll give you one example, which is convenience. I mean, if I'm in Gmail, it links to calendar. Sometimes I book a flight and it will auto-populate in Google Calendar. The search is really good. I mean, it's created by a search company. Search is good. And I like the interface. So again, like, yeah, we don't accept the status quo, but the status quo does give us convenience.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Yes, for sure, there is convenience, but you're also giving up a lot, right? You're giving up your most sensitive intimate data. You're opting into a surveillance machine, which has, you know, very native consequences for society and also for the security of your data. And that is actually Proton's mission. Now, our goal is to make the user experience functionally equivalent, or as close to it as possible, where you don't have to give up convenience to also get privacy. I think the kind of, you know, the notion that you need to trade off privacy in order to have convenience, this is ultimately a false notion. And this is one that through technology, you know, we should be motivated to solve that problem. And I believe in the past, there definitely was a gap.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  But I think as, you know, technologies, Proton Mail and others continue to develop, you'll see that over time, that gap actually shrinks, right? You know, the search experience, the mail calendar integrations, you know, these are all things that, you know, today Proton can do, and will only do better in the future.

• 7:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  So if I get an email from like a flight confirmation that goes to my Proton Mail, it will show up in the Proton calendar?

• 7:30Speaker 02

  We're not reading your emails to do that right away. But we are now starting to auto add the ICS calendar invites. So in fact, today, the integration is already working where, you know, we are adding, you know, events directly into the calendar. And this is things are, you know, we will continue adding more and more of these features. And that's part of Proton's move towards an ecosystem, right? The reason for integrating mail, calendar, and Drive together is to actually support those integrations.

• 7:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, now you talk about opting into a surveillance machine. You know, we hear a lot of this, like, and sometimes this language gets alarmist, like surveillance capitalism, for instance. So how much surveillance is actually happening to the average user?

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's not so much the surveillance that is actually happening, but the potential surveillance that this enables, right? And if you, for example, look at the demand data that Google or Facebook or even Apple has on you today, it is far more data than what the East German government had on East German citizens. And you know, through the Stasi, right? It's, you know, way more.

• 8:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Funny. I was just, yeah. I'm here in Germany. I was just at the Stasi museum in the Stasi headquarters from like a week and a half ago. And I was like, oh, this is all good. Sorry, I was there a week and a half ago. And I was like, oh, this is all going to be good material to speak with Andy about. Cause that level of surveillance was unbelievable. But like, that was done to individuals in dossiers that they would then go and use to sort of keep the general population in line. And that's not exactly what's being done here with, you know, ads, get it showing ads based off of even some of the information that you've sent. It's, you know, or, or, you know, and I would say it seems like most, most people that are emailing or don't have the government reading their emails the same way the Stasi would read and tap, wiretap everything.

• 9:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  They were dressing up as, as tourists with cameras to take pictures of people in the street. I don't know if that's the same thing.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  Well, you know, uh, Google doesn't need to dress up as a tourist in the street, right? Because they're already on your phone and on your devices and scanning all your information anyways, right? They have automatic ways of doing that. Uh, and I think the way to look at this is, you know, um, imagine the real life version of Google. It's someone who follows you around, listening to all your conversations, writing down everywhere you've been, uh, take, keeping a record of all your purchases, uh, and putting it into a little, you know, notebook. Uh, you would never tolerate the real life version of Google. So why should we tolerate the online version of Google?

• 9:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Because I, I'll give you an example. I mean, by the way, I'm not, I'm just trying to, to, you know, hash this out because I actually think there's a lot of merit to what you're doing. But I want to make sure that you get the arguments that Google would make just so, just so that we're, you know, able to really get to the heart of the matter. It's not, at the end of the day, that the Google that's taking notes on us is not a person. You know, it is an algorithm. And if a Google engineer were to accept or to access that, you know, notepad of data, which I don't deny they have, they would get fired. So it seems to me like it's a lesser degree.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Well, this goes on a deep topic of algorithms, right? And what is more responsible, a person or a computer algorithm? I would argue that actually the algorithm is probably the bigger risk. Because as we have seen, it can do things that are completely unintended in terms of consequences. And today, we're in a world that's ramming algorithms. And I would think that actually, the person would be able to make a moral judgment. The algorithm simply does what it's trained to do. And the fact that it's an algorithm and not a person on the other end doesn't actually comfort me. And I don't think it should comfort us.

• 11:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  So what are the unintended consequences that the algorithms have done when they've gotten a hold of people's data?

• 11:14Speaker 02

  Well, let's take social media and Facebook, for example. An example of an algorithm is the so-called notion of filter bubbles. So let's say you are a right or left-leaning political person. Well, you will end up clicking on content that more aligns with your views. And guess what? The content that gets the most views and gets the most traction on social media is the stuff from the far left and from the far right. So the algorithm says, okay, you clearly lean that way. And then inadvertently it shows you more and more extreme content. And this over time leads to the polarization of society. Because people on the right have more right views, people on the left have more left views.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  And it's algorithm that's constantly feeding them information to make their views more extreme. So I think this is an example of how algorithms can go out of control. And this is just, I think, scratching the surface here.

• 12:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and I wouldn't call, I mean, I think filter bubbles, I think filter bubbles have been somewhat disproven. You do come into contact with a lot of viewpoints from the other side on social media. The thing is, though, and I think you hit on it, that social media does amplify the stuff that's the most radical. And that's the type of stuff from the other side that you see. And it makes you not be able to find common ground with people. We've had a couple of discussions about that here in the show over the past year.

• 12:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  But that being said, it's very different. Like, your personal data is, that's part of the business model there. I don't think Gmail tracking your data is going to make you send more and more extreme views out to people. So what could be the potential unintended consequence here?

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Well, I think what Google is doing is not just Gmail, right? They're taking all of your information from diverse sources, which is every single platform that you use. And essentially, they're building a profile on you. And then they're using that information to decide what they show you, what you don't show you, and to kind of inform your worldview. So when you think about search and advertising, this is basically control over what you buy, what you think, what political ads you see. This is a high level of control over our day-to-day lives. And of course, today, it's Google. Maybe you trust Google, right? But the data is out there forever.

• 13:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, for the record, I do not trust Google. It's a trade-off, for sure.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course. And your information is literally one merger and acquisition from foreign overseas. I think the classic example of this is the Grindr, the gay dating app that got bought by the Chinese, and became a national security issue. So the thing about data online is you can't take it back. Once it's out there, it's out there. And the ways that it can be used and misused in the future is completely out of your control. I think when people were signing for Facebook and signing for Facebook groups back in 2010, 2012, they didn't even imagine that Cambridge Analytica could be the outcome of that data. And this is the thing, is that we don't really understand how some of this data can be used in the future. And we're today freely giving it up. And I think that is really the behavior

• 14:20Speaker 02

  that I think we need to take a step back from and say, hey, maybe this is too much. Maybe we should have control of our data instead of just freely giving it up.

• 14:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Cambridge Analytica, I mean, this stuff might influenced in some extent like the way that you think. But it's not like in that Social Network movie where they're controlling you. Wouldn't you agree?

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Well, depending on who you believe and who you talk to, Cambridge Analytica could have swung some elections, right?

• 14:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  I think that's highly doubtful. But sorry, go ahead.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yes, it's true, but I think it goes without saying that this data.

• 14:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  I don't think what they did was good, but yeah.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I think it goes without saying that this data could swing elections, you know, if misused. And, you know, Kaminga Letha, of course, is one example, but you can kind of see this taking to the logical extreme, right? And we don't need to look very far or even imagine too far to see what this extreme looks like. If you look at a country that also has tech giants that are pervasive in everyday life with basically monopoly power, that's China with, you know, Alibaba, Tencent, and these are the big, you know, Chinese tech giants. And there you can clearly see an example of what happens if tech companies' data is put at the service of a government actor that is, you know, bent on control and supervision of a population of one billion people.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  So this is a logical conclusion. This is the risk of what could happen. And of course, that seems very far away from us, you know, maybe here in Europe and here in the US. But why would you, you know, freely give this power over us out there to the public in a way that we cannot control, right? I think it's it's something that should concern all of us, really.

• 16:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Andy, there is a difference, though, between the US and China case because it's the government, right? At the end of the day, the United States government or governments in Europe aren't going to have population control the same way that the Chinese Communist Party does. So that's that's where the distinction is. It's the party, really, not the technology. Or maybe a combination of both, but it starts with the party.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Yes, it starts with the people, but technology enables you to do this, you know, at massive scale and at very high risk, right? Yeah, I can give you an example of another country that thirty years ago, you know, on paper and also in practice was a democracy in a competitive elections. This was Russia, right? And, you know, you see how this can actually shift over time. I'm not saying that, you know, in Western Europe, we're destined to follow the same trajectory. But there are definitely some countries, you know, which in the past you might have considered to be democracies, which today you'd be hard pressed to consider a democracy. And you can see kind of the danger of this data because this data that's out there today will still be there in 30 years and can potentially be misused.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  So this is why I think from a society standpoint, privacy does matter. We should care about it because without privacy, you don't really have true freedom of speech, freedom of information. And without that, actually, democracy doesn't really work. So I find it as fundamental to safeguarding democracy in the 21st century, which is the digital century.

• 17:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's right. So you started with email. I get Proton emails, like people sign up to pay technology with it. I have an account, though I don't use it very often, maybe I should use it more often. Why did you start out with email? Because I feel like messaging, I use Signal. And Signal has disappearing messages, it's encrypted. I think that's much better compared to the other alternatives, but email, less of a compelling event for me to move over. So why start with email?

• 18:01Speaker 02

  It really comes down to the notion of what email represents. Today, when you look at email, it's not a communication tool. People think it's a communication tool, but actually, email as a communication tool probably stopped 10, 15, maybe even 20 years ago. What email actually is, is identity. And if I were to give you the choice between losing your passport or losing your email, losing your email is probably far more inconvenient because it is the thing that you have online that links together the rest of your online life, your whole digital existence. So when you choose to use email from Google and you use Gmail, what you're doing is not so much using a Google tool to communicate.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  What you actually are doing is saying, I'm going to give Google control of my identity. Because that Gmail account is your Google account. And that is a thing that Google uses to tie the information they have on their entire platform across all their services to your identity. And in some ways, the use of Proton mail instead of Gmail is to say, I want to opt out of this system and I'm going to have my identity and I refuse to have a file for myself in Google. And that's why we started with email, because it's, in my opinion, the highest leverage way for people to break free of the system.

• 19:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  So what can Google do with Gmail that you can't do? I'm not talking about functionality, I'm talking about privacy wise.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Uh, so, uh, like, what do you mean by that exactly?

• 19:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  Like they can read our messages or... But when you have an encrypted email service, what can't you do that others can't? Cause your selling point is what you can't do.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  So from a technical standpoint, um, I would say that, uh, you know, um, Google could actually, uh, encrypt, uh, all the emails on their system. They could do, you know, everything that we do, cause technologically, nothing prevents them, right? I would say the key difference between Proton and Google is really the incentive structure that is in place. You know, Google is a company, uh, that today, uh, you know, is making 90% of its revenue from advertising. And advertising, uh, works best when it's contextualized and when it's personalized. Uh, so in other words, Google has a $200 billion incentive, uh, to really get up to the line of preppy in terms of, you know, using your data. Because that's what makes them money.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  So when it comes to say making advertisers happy, as opposed to protecting your privacy, uh, well, the people that are paying $200 billion are the ones that are gonna get the final say. Uh, so I think the difference is business model and alignment of interest between, you know, users and companies.

• 20:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, but go, but, but more to the question in terms of like the practically what they can do. So do they have like product managers that can go on and read, read your emails? Do they have like an ad system that targets based off of the emails? And that, and can the, or can't that happen in Proton Mail?

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Well, uh, Proton for one is on the advertising business. So, you know, um, we don't have user profiles. We don't link any information to relevant entities. Uh, you know, um, we're not looking, uh, closely at, we're not, we're not scanning your information. We're not, uh, monetizing any information. We're not serving any advertisements. So, you know, all the things that Google does enable its ad business, um, you know, we don't do any of that. Uh, and I think that's, you know, a very clear and very big distinction. And we also cannot one day say change our mind and decide we wanna do that. Because once data has been encrypted with zero access encryption, once your inbox is encrypted, because it's zero access, we don't have the means to say, oh, you know, Proton's been sold,

• 21:41Speaker 02

  the new owners really want to mine data and do that as a business model. It's not possible to actually decrypt the data after it has been encrypted. So I think it's only if we not do it today, we are prevented from doing that in the future by the nature of the tech works.

• 21:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  So nobody inside Proton can read the emails of people?

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, we have no means. Yeah, exactly. We have no means to decrypt because we simply do not possess the encryption keys that, you know, would be required for us to decrypt user inboxes.

• 22:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  But Gmail, they can.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 22:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  How big of an issue is the government? I want to go back to this government question because we talk a lot about. So we've talked about like surveillance state, but we've talked all about that in terms of the context of advertising. Let's talk about it in terms of governments being able to access email. There was the whole Snowden revelations that showed that the government was spying on a lot more of us than we thought. Do you think that's still the case? And how often is the government going into people's email inbox and just reading what they, whatever they want?

• 22:42Speaker 02

  I think they're doing it probably way more frequently than we imagine. And, you know, if you take the US, for example, where, you know, Google's based, Google is an American company, right? There's things like national security letters, there's things like FISA courts. There's many ways in which they can, you know, get direct access to people's inboxes and get this information. So I would say actually in the US is probably quite common because the means to doing it are quite easy and, you know, FISA courts are rubber stamping exercises.

• 23:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do you have any data in terms of how, like, is there any publicly publicly available data in terms of how often this actually happens? Like if you're an average user and if you're not like, you know, in ISIS, like, how often is this? How, how easy is this to do?

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Well, Google does publish statistics, so they do have data on this. And we know it's in the millions of requests per year.

• 23:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  This is the ones that they published and the ones that they're able to be transparent about, right? There could also be some that they're simply not allowed to disclose because they received a national security letter. So clearly, there are a large number of government access requests. And it is something that happens quite routinely. Now, who they're targeting, how they're targeting, are they doing it within the confines of the law? This is hard to say, right? I think Snowden showed that at least in 2013, it was being done on a widespread basis with very active, very practical checks and balances. Maybe it's different today, but I would be skeptical if it has radically changed since Snowden made his revelations public.

• 24:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, Andy Yen is with us. He is the CEO of Proton Mail. We're going to take a quick break, talk a little bit more about the company that he operates and whether its incentives are different than the other big tech companies' incentives that we've discussed. We'll also take a look at some of the other products they offer. And then we're going to get into some of your Twitter questions. There were some questions, good questions from Twitter that showed up when I asked for them. So thank you for those. And then finally, we'll talk a little bit about Apple and its decision to encrypt iCloud. So lots of interesting stuff. Don't go away, we'll be back right after this. This episode is brought to you by Avpoint. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Copilots, chatbots, agents doing real work.

• 25:02Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 27:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast's second half, our last half of the show for the year. So we're closing out 2022 strong here with Andy Yan, CEO of Proton Mail. Andy, first of all, why did you start this company? Did you like see what Snowden did and say, okay, I have to create an antidote to that? What was your, what was the compelling event to start the company?

• 27:23Speaker 02

  I think like many good tech products, ultimately Proton Mail was a service that I myself wanted. Back in 2014, when we first started, if you wanted to have privacy of your email, you didn't really have much of a choice, right? You could self-host your email, which was finding a cloud service provider, Back then wasn't even that common. It's all in your own email software and then being administrator of that. Or if you want to be online, you can go to Google or Yahoo or some of the other companies. They all monetize to the same way. So my thinking was simply, there must be a third way. There must be a better way. There must be a way for I can, you know, house things that's so easy to use. My parents can figure it out. But at the same time, still preserve, you know, privacy.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  And that was the concept of Proton Mail was to see if we could, you know, bring together, you know, the business model, the technology and also the user experience to, you know, make that happen.

• 28:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, cool. And so when did you found it?

• 28:20Speaker 02

  This is back in 2014. So it's about a year after the Snowden leaks and that, you know, really, I think that really got people thinking, you know, myself included.

• 28:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  How many people does the company have?

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Today, we have slightly over 400 employees around the world.

• 28:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, so it's a sizable company.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's grown a lot in recent years.

• 28:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  And your business model? Like you're also a company. I mean, Google's a company, you're a company.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  So, you know, your, your objective also is to make money off of email users just a different way.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And I think that's extremely important, right? Because if you don't have a sustainable way to make money, actually the business won't be around for a long time. And, you know, I think as a user, you shouldn't actually trust a company that doesn't have a way to make money. Now, the question is, how do you make money, you know, in a way that aligns incentives with customers? And, you know, in Google's case, I, as a Google user, you're not Google's customer. You're actually the product that Google is selling to its real customers, which is the advertisers. And that's the business alignment of interest. And in Proton's case, you know, of course, you know, our users, they actually pay us. So we keep the lights on through the users who pay us.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  And because of that, my only incentive is to protect user privacy because that's why they pay us. And I think that alignment is very important to, you know, make sure that you can always keep users' best interest at heart.

• 29:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, so it's a paid product. What has been the growth curve? I mean, I get a sense that as people have become more aware of this, people are more and more moving towards encrypted services. Like, just in terms of messaging on the phone, I never would have thought to use an encrypted messaging app a few years ago. And now, almost all of my messaging happens in Signal, like I mentioned. So are you seeing a similar growth curve?

• 30:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think, just to come back on your previous comment, it's not exactly a paid product, it's a freemium product. And that means most people actually don't pay us, right? But the power users, the one more features, will pay us. And, you know, like most freemium models, there's a small percentage of paying users. And I think that is very, very important because that ties directly to growth. The fact that it's a freemium model means that we've basically made privacy encryption technology very accessible. So anybody, anywhere in the world, even if they don't have any financial resources, can actually get on the system and get, you know, private information, you know, get the private information protected. And this has, you know, led to what I can only call, you know, very exponential growth. When we started in 2014,

• 30:59Speaker 02

  there were maybe, you know, 10,000, 20,000 people on this, on the platform. Today, if you look at all Pro Home Services, we're talking in excess of 70 million accounts. And most of these came on just in the past couple of years. So I think you're right, there has been a dramatic shift in people's attitudes towards privacy. And there is now more and more demand for services that actually, you know, give you control over your data. And I think that's a positive thing. It's long overdue, but it's great that it's actually happening now.

• 31:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  She said, "Most of these came on in the past couple of years." When did you hit 35 million users? Was it like last year or?

• 31:34Speaker 02

  This was probably, you know, within the last two years, let's say.

• 31:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Two years, okay. That's wild.

• 31:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, and the last thing I want to ask you about your product, then we're going to move on to some Twitter questions. You don't just do email. Actually, when we met, you mentioned that you do like Google Drive-like capabilities. Like, one of the things that would prevent me from switching over is the fact, I love the fact that like, you know, I have Google Docs and all that stuff, but... You have a version of that as well.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think I first want to kind of maybe cover the notion of switching. You know, people tend to think of privacy and not private as kind of mutually exclusive, right? Like, you know, if I'm a privacy person, it means I don't have Facebook, I don't have Instagram. You know, I don't have, you know, LinkedIn, I don't use any other services. And I think the more practical way of looking at this is really a coexistence. So I'll give you an example, of course, I use Protomail. But you know, I've got my old Yahoo account as well. And when I'm in McDonald's, let's say in Zurich, trying to get access to the public wifi, I'm not giving them my Protomail account, I'm giving them my Yahoo account because I know they're going to sell that and it's going to get spammed, right? So I think this idea of private versus not private is kind of a false dichotomy.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  I think it's a coexistence, you know, people.

• 32:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's a tough sell to say, hey, let's, you know, add one more inbox. I mean, a lot of people have like Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, a couple of G-mails going through like the difference, so.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  But if you have so many, what's one more, right? And I think.

• 33:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's more work, but, but answer that question about the the drive stuff because I feel like that's important.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, so, so coming to the question of drive, you know, of course, we need to have documents and all the functionality. Now, you know, Google Drive has been out for, you know, more than a decade, right? And they have a big head start on us. So of course, it'll take us some time to get all this functionality. But the drive product, as is out there already today, is actually already doing quite well. You know, we're already past, you know, one million files uploaded, you know, per day. And it's only been, you know, a few months since we launched the product. And what drive is doing is it gives you a way to, you know, store stuff on the cloud with end-to-end encryption. And I think that's actually, you know, fantastic. It doesn't have document storage yet, but that's, of course, on the roadmap.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  And if you say you have a very sensitive document, in the past, you have two choices. You could put it locally on your phone or on your computer on a USB stick. And that keeps it safe. But if you lose your phone or lose your USB stick, you're screwed. If you're in a different country without access to USB stick, you're also in trouble, right? So you know, cloud is of course convenient. But the issue with Google Cloud is of course, then you're giving Google access to all your files. And I think, you know, the innovation really what makes, you know, Proton Drive super interesting is you keep the privacy, your data is still confidential and you know, we cannot decrypt it. But it's accessible anywhere in the world from any device. And I think there is definitely is a happy medium that you know, can be achieved there where you get convenience and privacy at the same time.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  And this is why we're pursuing that product. And I think it's, you know, something that could be very valuable.

• 34:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  So you don't have like a composer yet, but that's something you're working on.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's something that is in progress.

• 34:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay. What's the ETA on that?

• 34:53Speaker 02

  It's hard to say, right? You know, we're a community driven company. It depends on what community wants. And I can tell you from the kind of the initial reaction, you know, Twitter, Reddit, and people who have emailed us. They want the composer and the document editor. But a lot of people just want better photo support. So I think we had to balance the two to see what is, you know, higher priority.

• 35:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Talk a little bit about that, about how your community drives what you build. Is there forums or something? Or like, how does that work?

• 35:18Speaker 02

  Well, it comes back to the history. Proton as at the very beginning was a crowdfunding project. So it was launched from, you know, 10,000 people donating half a million dollars to crowdfund Proton Mail.

• 35:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  Not each, right?

• 35:32Speaker 02

  No, no. Unfortunately, no, but overall, right? And that was, I think, you know, a super fascinating way to begin the business. And we're today probably one of the only crowdfunding companies that, you know, started crowdfunding. And then, you know, was able to be around and grow over the, over the years.

• 35:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Actually delivered.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, actually delivered on the promise, right?

• 35:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'm still waiting for my fridge with the boombox Kickstarter.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember it's funny because you know, back when we, you know, were doing crowdfunding, we were selling probably called lifetime accounts, right? Which of course is very highly speculative to buy a lifetime account for a crowdfunding project that hasn't even launched yet. But I think those people at the price of a solo mat definitely got their money's worth. And Being a crowdfunding company means that it's very community driven. And because the community is what pays us. So every product that we build, every feature that we build, it's really driven by community feedback. It's whatever people say they want the most, we build it. So, you know, when they ask for calendar, we did calendar. They asked for file storage, we did file storage. And even today on Drive, it's, you know, through Reddit, it's through Twitter, it's through people contacting us and customer support.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  It's through people who answer our annual surveys and our polls. You know, literally, you tell us to do it and then we're going to do it. And I think that's how, you know, companies should be run. It makes product management, you know, very easy, of course, because my roadmap is very clear, right? It's what the community tells me they want.

• 36:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's like the, the dream of Web three, right? The users become stakeholders, except you don't, you know, I don't think you're issuing any of those FTX tokens.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think you don't need a, you know, scammy cryptocurrency in order to achieve this. You can just ask them directly and even without coins, they'll tell you what they want.

• 37:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, okay, cool. So let's talk a little bit about the news. So Apple is offering encryption to iCloud. And people like Walt Moss, Walt Mossberg, I talked about this iCloud loophole. Where like Apple talked about like what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone. But because iCloud wasn't encrypted, there are, you know, different government entities, I believe, that could have gotten in there. At least that's what I think the argument is. What's your take on the fact that Apple is going all iCloud for the, all encryption for the iCloud backup? Good sign?

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think of course it's a positive sign. It's probably, you know, good for, you know, consumers. But I think as for anything that Apple does, you got to take it with a grain of salt, right? And kind of understand, you know, their motivations. And at the end of the day, I think the question that, you know, we often ask ourselves is, you know, what does Apple stand for? What is Apple's values, right? And when it comes to privacy in Apple, the way I think about it and the way I've seen it and kind of what they're actually demonstrating is it's privacy when it's convenient and doesn't hurt the bottom line. And I'll give you kind of a quick example of this, right? You know, this N10 encryption. Of you know iCloud, at least the file storage. I'm not really sure, I would be highly doubtful if Apple will rule this out in China.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Now China is a country where, for example, you know, Apple is already putting data centers with Chinese joint venture partners in order to give, you know, Chinese government access to, you know, Apple customer data in China. So Apple relationship privacy seems to be, you know, we'll do it when it's convenient and when it makes us more money. But when it comes to, you know, being private or being people first versus, you know, profits. Profits tends to win most of the time. And there's, you know, been many examples in recent years that, you know, really shows kind of how they take that approach, right? You know, I think, how does Apple define privacy? Apple really defines privacy as, you know, nobody can abuse your data except for us, right?

• 39:13Speaker 02

  And the rule definition should be, and the problem definition is, no one can abuse your data, period. So I think it's very important when we look at privacy announcements from big tech companies to not let them redefine what privacy means. Because that's actually the fastest way to lose privacy.

• 39:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it's interesting. There's no way that they're going to end up

• 39:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  closing that off to China. I mean, if like, reporting has suggested that that's basically the whole deal from them is that there is a backdoor there for the Chinese Communist Party.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then, you know, Apple is also not open source, right? So, you know, how it works, what it actually does, there's no way to independently verify. So, you know, I think that's also something that makes it quite a bit different from other, you know, encryption software like, you know, Signal, Proton Mail, Proton Drive. These are open source softwares and, you know, that way you as a consumer can be very confident that it actually does what it's advertising to do.

• 40:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, okay, so here is a tweet from Tim Sweeney who runs Epic Games. It's a notorious Apple opponent. Tim, if you want to come on the show, you're always welcome. He says, "Apple's move to support iCloud end-to-end encryption is a great one, provided it's not a gambit to announce this and then offer to trade it away in secret talks with US officials in exchange for their dropping antitrust legislation and enforcement."

• 40:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Bad timing, dot, dot, dot. And then he says, my view is that the proper boundary for absolute privacy in which a company can't look or listen, even if compelled, is the boundary between personal effects and personal conversations and published information and public conversations. What's your take on what he has to say?

• 40:51Speaker 02

  Well, I think, of course, Epic and Apple have been locked in a fight for a long time.

• 40:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  They are not friends.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, we're also locked in that fight as well, right? Because, you know, we've also been very vocal in criticizing some of Apple's, you know, apps for policies.

• 41:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Do I think it's part of some secret negotiation, you know, with the government to trade away? You know, my personal opinion, no, right?

• 41:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Seems a bit out there, yeah.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I also can't know too much what is happening, you know, behind closed doors. It's, I think, it's quite interesting because if you maybe remember back less than a year ago, Apple was saying, you know, we're going to do some special, you know, client-side backend scanning in order to, you know, make, you know, child sexual abuse materials, you know,

• 41:40Speaker 02

  let's say detectable by default, and we're going to practically, you know, send that information to law enforcement, right? So it seems a bit kind of, you know, odd, but the same company that was thinking about, you know, practically reporting their users to the government is now coming around and saying, oh, now we're going to encrypt everything, right? So it's a, you know, even for a company like Apple, it's a bit of a, you know, big turnaround. I think, you know, some people are going to get a backlash from that. So, and Apple is huge. It's based in the US, clearly has a lot of discussions with law enforcement, and there could be things, you know, going on behind the scenes, but I would prefer to, you know, give them the benefit of the doubt.

• 42:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  On that front.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I will say that, you know, Apple's previous privacy moves.

• 42:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  If you look at them a bit more cynically, you kind of see what is, you know, at play. So I'll give you an example of kind of them locking out third-party trackers, right? Apple said, oh, this is a move for us to, you know, protect your privacy. We're going to disable third-party trackers. And of course, Facebook, you know, cries foul.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  But then you dig deeper. And it turns out that, you know, Apple's not blocking all trackers. There are some trackers that are still there. And it's the first party ones. It's the one that Apple controls. And then at the same time, you see Apple building on ads business and pushing ads, you know, into the settings, into other applications that they control in the App Store. Right. And Apple's, you know, ad business goes from 300 million in 2017 to 4 billion today. And a projected 30 billion in 2026. So when Apple said locking out third party trackers, you know, their actual motivation, you know, wasn't privacy. The actual motivation was I'm going to, you know, lock out my surveillance capitalism, you know, a competition so that when I go do ads, I have a clean run and I've already cleaned the field.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  And so this is why I think, you know, Tim is probably right to be a bit suspicious. And some people are suspicious.

• 43:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. How do you, Andy? Let's go back to the child sexually exploitative material. How does Proton handle that stuff? Because, you know, it seems like folks that would be in that world would want an encrypted service. I mean, it's sort of like you've built the perfect tool for them.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  Well, I think it doesn't matter whether it's encrypted or not encrypted. You know, folks out there who are doing this type of abuse are going to use services. You know, they use Google Drive, for example. They for sure use Apple as well. It's an issue that all platforms have to deal with. And of course, you know, when we get reports of such things, you know, it's illegal in Switzerland. We follow the rules around that. But there's kind of this notion that in order to prevent this entirely, you must, you know, disable encryption or you must backdoor encryption. And the way to think about this is, of course, if you had a world without privacy, it's probably more quote unquote, secure, right?

• 44:32Speaker 02

  But, you know, if you ask the people in North Korea that live in such a regime, they probably don't feel more secure. So, you know, as a society, if we are for freedom of speech, free information and democracy, you know, we also need to tolerate some level of privacy.

• 44:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  But how can you, how can you catch, how can you catch people? What methods could you use?

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Well, you know, short of breaking encryption, there is many different ways. So I'll give you a kind of example. You know, today, if you were to look at, let's say, you know, some file metadata. So who uploaded the file? Did they get uploaded over Tor IP? You know, what is the pattern of access? How is it being shared? Actually, a lot of this information can, in fact, be leveraged to, you know, give you very accurate predictions of, you know, which accounts, you know, are abusive. And these are techniques, these are not new techniques, right? This was used, of course, for, you know, anti spam. Because how do you know if an email is spam or not spam? And, you know, some of these same behavioral techniques, you know, can actually get you quite far.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  And will it be, let's say, as effective as, you know, checking every single file? No, right? You know, if you want to stop, for example, you know, bombs being sent in the mail, you open every single package and you read it, right? But, you know, we don't do that because that is simply against, you know, our values of privacy that, you know, we accept in society today. And this is exactly the thing, you know? We, of course, know that probably by allowing encryption, we will be less good at detecting some of these things. But that's the overall benefit to society because privacy gives us so much more in terms of freedom and democracy and, you know, civil liberties. And that's the balance that I think, you know, regulators always need to be very careful about striking.

• 46:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. So we got some great questions for you from Twitter. One of them is from Neville Lahiru, and this is a pretty good one. It talks about, what are your thoughts on the whole governments versus encryption matter? And if there's a practical middle ground to it, especially when the finger's pointed at national security issues? So it builds off of what we were just talking about. Obviously, the government's going to want to, you know, have stuff a little bit more open. And there could be national security risks that people are using. You know, you're going to, you admitted, you're going to be a little less good at it. You know, it probably goes across the board. But you're, you're, you make a compelling argument for encryption. Is there, is there some common ground? Folks can find.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think we are already at the common ground and you know, this goes back to.

• 47:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  What is that?

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, so this goes back to, I think, you know, um, the incentives of governments, incentives of private sectors and the role of legislation, you know, um, when you pass a law today is really to fix, you know, something that markets are not able to address. That's the main reason for passing a law in a capitalist economy, right? And take terrorism or, you know, even child abuse, right? Is there any tech company in the world, even the most evil one, for example, that would want that on their platform? I would say not. It's illegal. It's a PR. It's a moral and ethical issue. So the notion that, you know, private sector companies like Proton, like Apple, like Facebook, you know, you name it,

• 47:49Speaker 02

  is not already doing the best that they can do to try to tackle this problem. It's just, you know, folly, right? You know, there is no need for government to say, oh, you need to do more on terrorism because everybody is already doing the maximum they can, right? You know, the absolute disaster for any tech company would be to find that their technology was used in the next nine eleven. So, you know, in that sense, I think there's very common ground in that everybody agrees these things are objectionable. And everybody is doing the best that they can, you know, within technology possible to tackle that issue. And that's something that, you know, I'm not saying that it maybe doesn't let everybody in DC sleep easy at night. Maybe it keeps FBI up at night, but it's something that we in society at large can feel comfortable and probably confident in.

• 48:31Speaker 02

  Because, you know, everybody, even at Proton, we have dozens of engineers, you know, working full time just on this issue. And so I believe the common ground and alignment actually is already there.

• 48:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, great. Going along these lines, another question we had from, and by the way, shout out to

• 48:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Jay Manchamong, who said, ask about the iCloud advanced data protection. So we got that in. And now, Richard Porter also asks about how Proton and the Swiss authorities interact. And there's this article that he links to where he says that he shows that a court order led to the arrest of a French climate activist when it came to Proton. So what's going on with your relationship with the Swiss government? And do they have undue power over your company?

• 49:18Speaker 02

  I think unless your company is based in a boat 15 miles offshore, you're under the jurisdiction of, you know, some country, right? So, you know, given that you accept you'll be in a jurisdiction of some country, it's a question of, you know, picking the jurisdiction. And in Proton's case, you know, we chose Switzerland because it is quite privacy protective. It's law tradition of privacy and the laws generally are quite good. But that doesn't mean, you know, Switzerland is not Somalia, right? It's not a lawless, you know, country where anything goes. And I think, you know, Proton as a service, if you use Proton, it's also not, let's say, immunity from criminal prosecution. So in situations where someone is breaking Swiss law, you know, we do have to comply.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  And actually, this case in, you know, this particular case-

• 50:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  What happened with the climate activist? Yeah.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  You know, I'm not even sure the climate activist, to be, to be honest, right? You know, what happened in this case was, you know, there were some folks who had been illegally, you know, squatting a building. And they had done, you know, extensive property damage and have been, you know, have been stealing, you know, theft, right? So the issue here is, you know, your destruction of, you know, private property, of theft. These are things that, you know, actually are illegal in Switzerland.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  And, you know, you can't do that thing, do things like that, right? You know, when you do something like that, you will get in trouble. Now, what I find interesting about this case is, you know, people were so focused on, oh, you know, Proton cooperates with Swiss governments, which, you know, to me was pretty obvious. But what was interesting is this was actually probably one of the first times that Proton's encryption was tested in court. If you think about this case, you know, people have been destroying a building, they're squatting a building. The police knew who they were, right? They weren't trying to find them. They simply had to go to the address and they were there. The folks actually had already been previously been arrested. So in that case, you know, why did police come to Proton in this case?

• 51:19Speaker 02

  Well, they were trying to get incriminating information from the emails in order to build a case. And what this case demonstrated, you know- Clearly, you know, through the legal system was even under legal pressure, even under legal coercion, even with a Swiss, you know, government coming down and ordering us, there is no way to, you know, break Proton's encryption. There is no backdoor. Otherwise, we would have, we would have been legally compelled to use it. And I think it's, in many ways,

• 51:50Speaker 02

  I think it's good to have that reassurance, right, to know that our assurances of encryption have been legally tested. And if these folks have been using, you know, Gmail or something else, the outcome will be very different, right? All the evidence would have been there. But in our case, you know, nothing could be decrypted. And I think, you know, it's, it proves that, you know, this works. And Proton does fight in court. In fact, you know, about a month after this case, we won actually a major legal victory. So, you know, what this means is unless you're based, you know, 15 miles offshore, you're in a country, right? But what you can do is change the laws of a country through the way that they're interpreted by fighting court cases.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  And, you know, we actually won a court victory about a month after this case that, you know, dramatically limits the amount of information that email providers are required to retain and hand over. And, you know, in democracy, you can do that. So, you know, it's not like you just have to give in to whatever the government asks. You can sue the government, you can fight them in court. And in many cases, you actually can win, like we did, you know, that, in that particular case.

• 52:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  Andy, last question for you. You mentioned you have 70 million users. And, you know, compared to Gmail, which has a billion plus, sort of feels like a hobby site. And I'm not saying that it's a hobby site, but like, the benefits are obvious. The sale is not going very well if you look at the sheer numbers. Why is that? And can that ever change?

• 53:18Speaker 02

  Well, you know, If I look at privacy, it's really a bit like electric cars, you know, 20 years ago.

• 53:27Speaker 02

  The environmental benefits were obvious. The fact that it's the future, well, it wasn't obvious back then to anybody other than Elon Musk. This is why he's the richest man in the world, right? But at some point, going electric on automobiles becomes inevitable. And I think it's the same for privacy, right? You know, at some point, when the private service is just as good as a non-private service, why would anybody not pick the private service? And just like today, why would you not pick electric car when everything is basically equivalent? Or if not better than, you know, the, you know, non-electric version? And I think you look at a service like Proton where we don't have advertisers

• 54:10Speaker 02

  and we can really do everything at service of the users. In the long run, being privacy first actually will lead to a better user experience because we don't have to make the compromises that Google and other companies are making, you know, to satisfy advertisers. So, you know, if you take the longer view of this thing, I do believe in, you know, five, 10, maybe even 20 years, we will get to a place where people look at this and say, wow, this is obvious. Why didn't we go privacy first? Now, it'll take a while to get there. There's a lot of work to do, you know? Tesla didn't take over the automobile industry overnight. It took 20 years. But if the core, you know, philosophy is correct and if the alignment is there for the customers, I think, you know, this is going to be inevitable. But it will take some time to get there.

• 54:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  And Deanne, thanks so much for joining.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  Yes, thanks for having me. It's really a pleasure to be on.

• 54:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Great chatting.

• 55:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  And that'll do it for us here on Big Technology Podcast. Thank you, Andy, so much for joining. Really great conversation. We have to do it again for sure. Thanks to all of you, the listeners. This is going to do it for us for 2022. We have some big news coming up in 2023. This podcast is going to get even better. And I'm very excited to make an announcement in the first week of January. So stay tuned for that. It's going to be super fun. I really, I feel like even tell you now, but I'll keep you in suspense. Anyway, thank you so much for listening. Really, it's amazing that people come back week after week. And I'm going to do my part to make sure that your dedication to this show is rewarded with some great interviews coming up next year. Okay. Thank you, Nate Gwotny, for the amazing job that you've done this year.

• 55:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  We've really, you know, done some last minute shows and I think it's really paid off. We've been able to be timely and tight in the work that we do here and couldn't happen without you. So, thank you, Nate. Thank you, LinkedIn, for having me as part of your podcast network. Here is to the next year. We're gonna keep doing this next year. So, that's awesome. And once again, thanks to all of you. Wow, 2022 is over. Next show is in 2023. We will see you then and there on Big Technology Podcast.

• 56:26Speaker 03

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