"This will be the last year that we hire engineers, and starting next year we hire what we used to call product managers, to build things with AI."
By the way, this is where the industry would like to go. Pay attention, people.
I think we all know the game has changed. The question would be whether the CEO is handling that effectively. On that score I don't think he is. It sounds like a slow-moving mutiny is going on, and to have it blow up in the press means you've already failed.
We do not all know anything of the sort. From my perspective, the game hasn't changed at all, and it's just a bunch of people hyping up a bubble who think it has.
The hard truth: the tech, and the economic system it's mixed with, do not care what your reasoned critique is, what your fine distinctions are, etc. Stated another way, if Capital finds in technology a new means for revolutionizing the mode of production, then it will push that forward, generalize it, expand it, and draw all of its consequences, even if that technology is not ideal!
In a sense, you're demoting your managers to implementors, and getting rid of their leadership role altogether. Simultaneously getting rid of your prior engineers and all the domain and tribal knowledge they had built up.
Well, yeah. They're the ones who are harmed by Andy's behavior, so obviously they're the ones speaking up. How does this disqualify anything they're saying?
« Workers describe an environment where employees have genuine concerns about security or being asked to develop security products with AI, but feel unable to voice them »
It's very hard to build reliable and secure products in a fearful environment. This sort of thing has come up in root cause analyses of disasters. We don't need to know whether Proton has defined "guardrails" for AI usage, or what the processes are like; there will be problems, gaps, and employees will be unable to raise those issues with management. That's all I need to know, really.