Technology Proton CEO: "Europe overslept the entry into the tech age"
Andy Yen, founder and CEO of the Swiss tech company Proton, believes that Europe has overslept the entry into the tech age. He called for legal requirements to promote the purchase and use of European technologies.
09.02.2025, 06:26
SDA
Yen, who founded the encrypted email program ProtonMail in 2014, explained in an interview with the SonntagsZeitung that Europe had long been a leader thanks to its historically strong industry. Since the 2000s, however, tech has become the key economic driver - a change that Europe has missed out on.
Europe has also got its priorities wrong by buying in foreign technologies at low cost to achieve short-term cost savings instead of investing itself. "Tech high-flyers like OpenAI or Deepseek are not created in Europe, but in the USA or China," Yen continued.
Another problem is the dependence on American technologies. European institutions and governments largely obtain their cloud infrastructure and software from companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon. "Switzerland and Europe are now colonies of the USA," the Proton founder is quoted as saying.
Yen sees an opportunity for Switzerland to take on a leading role by consistently promoting local tech products: "This could even become a decisive competitive advantage for Switzerland: If it leads the way and builds a very strong domestic tech sector, Europeans will be buying their tech services here in ten years' time."
