In a Stunning Move, Proton Shifts Ownership to Non-Profit Foundation

Proton announced today that its two founders and first employee have endowed the non-profit Proton Foundation with enough shares in the company to make it the primary shareholder. This ensures that Proton will continue, in perpetuity, to put people ahead of profits and stay true to its original ideals.

“Proton has always been a different type of organization,” co-founder Andy Yen writes in the announcement post. “As a company created by scientists who met at CERN and that, to this day, remains run by scientists, Proton has never been led by people who are driven by the maximization of profit. What has always mattered most is impact, led by a deeply held belief that people must come before profits.”

Just. Wow.

In a world dominated by reckless and impossibly rich Big Tech companies, this kind of idealism is rare. The only remotely similar examples I can summon are Firefox maker Mozilla and Automattic, the owner of WordPress, Simplenote, WooCommerce, Pocket Casts, and several other online brands. That latter company is guided by a moral creed, and it’s embraced open source and making the world a better place through diversity, equity, and inclusion. But Proton is next level, and it has always been hard-core about not behaving like a normal, growth- and profit-driven company.

“At Proton, we have intentionally taken a different path to achieve a more difficult mission,” Yen continues. “We want to remake the internet in a way that is private by default and serves the interests of all of society, not just the interests of a few Silicon Valley tech giants. In short, we want to create an internet that is able and willing to defend freedom, no matter the cost.”

Proton has worked towards this end for its 10 years of existence, Yen says, and it wants to ensure that it can continue to serve its community for the next 10 years and beyond. And so Yen, co-founder Jason Stockman Proton’s first employee, Dingchao Lu, have jointly granted the new Proton Foundation with enough shares to ensure it is the company’s biggest shareholder. “These transfers and commitments from the foundation founders make irrevocable our wish that Proton remains in perpetuity an organization that places people ahead of profits,” Yen notes.

Thanks to its location in Switzerland, the Proton Foundation gains additional security not available to for-profit companies. There are no shareholders, just a board of trustees who are legally obligated to act in accordance with the purpose for which the foundation was created. Which, in this case, is Proton’s original mission. And this structure prevents a hostile takeover, ensuring that mission is permanent.

The Proton Foundation will expand on Proton’s existing grant-giving efforts to support companies that are aligned with its mission. And it will invest in companies and technologies that promote a free and open Internet. Because there are no shareholders to placate, its success will be measured by impact, not profits.

Proton also distances itself from Mozilla, which it says is “Google-subsidized,” and Tor, which is “government-subsidized.” In contrast, Proton Foundation will be funded by the profitable and healthy Proton company that it owns and operates. “Proton is not profit-driven, but we still must retain profitability as a core objective because a cornerstone of safeguarding Proton’s mission is independence through self-sustainability,” Yen explains. “As with much of what we do, this approach is unique, but we believe this hybrid model offers the best of both worlds.”

Proton says it’s grown from a small company with one product, Proton Mail, to a firm with 500 employees, 100 million customers, and a diverse set of offerings. But it wants to move even more quickly: It will “work harder, ship faster, and make bigger and bolder bets because in seeking to upend the status quo” over the next 10 years, Yen claims.

“Sometimes the biggest risk is not taking risk,” he says.

You can learn more at the Proton Foundation website. But if you were teetering on the edge of embracing Proton fully, as I’ve been, this should provide all the incentive you need to fully support this company and its work. This is breathtakingly different from how most of the world works, especially in the personal technology market. And in the best ways imaginable.