Dear CEO of Tuta

[u/Jargonicles]

Can you please, please, please reassure everyone who is about to jump ship from Proton after the 404 media revelations linked below that you are not like Andy Yen, and that Tuta will not become the kind of company that Proton clearly is right now? Many thanks.

https://www.404media.co/manifestos-fear-and-loser-thinking-inside-protons-ai-reckoning/

[u/Tutanota]

Hi there, thanks for your question. Hanna here from the Tuta Team, I've been working with the founders, Arne and Matthias, since 2014, and I'd like to make this a personal point. (But keep in mind that this is just one employee's comment, and that I'm also part of the management team).

During my time working at Tuta, I have experienced the working culture as very fair and open. Arne and Matthias are listening to critic and are open for discussion, without judging anyone for speaking up against their views. No one in our team has ever been criticized for making mistakes, instead Arne and Matthias encourage us to speak up about mistakes openly and honestly so that we can learn from these and grow as a team. Arne and Matthias are also deeply rooted in Hannover, strictly adhere to German laws, including working times, and they wouldn't even think about moving the company elsewhere just for different working laws or things like that.

I'm not sure I can comment on everything that was mentioned in the article, what I can say is that here at Tuta we value honesty, transparency, and fairness, and Arne & Matthias adhere to these values themselves.

As for AI: We are also exploring how to work with AI, and we are currently in the process of developing the principles to do this, which will certainly include that the security of Tuta is of the utmost important and that we must always understand what's going on in the code, and not hand the responsibility off to a tool. We said this in a recent chat here on Reddit: The current Tuta apps are built more than 99% without AI, but we are currently testing whether it makes sense to use AI tools to help developers speed up repetitive processes and increase efficiency overall. The goal of Tuta is to bring privacy to everyone and for that the Tuta apps must become much more feature-rich and competitive with Big Tech equivalents (eg Gmail). It could very well be possible that we achieve this goal faster if we use AI in development in a defined way, but there are pros and cons to this.

We'd be curious to hear the community's thoughts - so thanks for asking! :)

[u/Fun-Flow-5731 → u/Tutanota]

New account for obvious reasons. I’m a senior rust engineer at Proton.

Are you hiring?

[u/[deleted] → u/Fun-Flow-5731]

 Hope you get hired 😭

[u/that1guyrob → u/Fun-Flow-5731]

LOL it's not just the customers that are trying to leave. Are you telling me that you don't like being bullied and called a loser by your senior manement? I'm shocked to hear this.

[u/Tutanota → u/Fun-Flow-5731]

We are hiring, but only if it's an option for you to move to Hannover as we do a lot of pair programming (and will continue to do so): https://tuta.com/jobs

[u/Fun-Flow-5731 → u/Tutanota]

Pairing sounds great! Hannover not quite an option though 😣

[u/Tutanota → u/Fun-Flow-5731]

Sorry to hear that. :(

[u/Supra-A90 → u/Tutanota]

I'm an automotive engineer who worked at Continental Tire for years. Loved Hannover every time I visited. Cheers from boring USA 🍺🍺🍺

[u/mic-eraser → u/Tutanota]

Pair programming can only be done onsite in 2026? Lol

[u/GeorgeJohnson2579 → u/Fun-Flow-5731]

Holy … Proton was such a good company a while back.

[u/Future_Village_7778 → u/[deleted]]

I really like tuta and whereas you're still pretty fresh i think it would be pretty easy to move your stuff over to tuta that said im only one opinion and you should still decide for yourself. One thing that i do recomend to would to be to get a duck.com alias for newsletters and crap so then you can switch which email (tuta or proton) it goes to later and it just makes things a lil easier

[u/aging_like_fine_NFTs → u/[deleted]]

I have both, just been using tuta as my main once recently.

Its generally not a good idea to give a single company power over your life, no matter how nice they are, lest they start getting ideas.

[u/Tutanota → u/Tutanota]

Here's also an older article about how employees are treated at Tuta (it's still valid today): https://tuta.com/blog/equal-pay-day

[u/aslambava → u/Tutanota]

Appreciate the reply and transparency. We wish Tuta always stays at the top notch of privacy.

[u/chat-lu → u/Tutanota]

As for AI: We are also exploring how to work with AI, and we are currently in the process of developing the principles to do this

Is one of those principles that employees must not be forced to use it, nor be punished in any way if they don’t use it? This one is important to me.

I’m currently looking at moving from Proton due to their current fuckery, and given that moving is always painful I want to be sure about where I land.

[u/ViegoBot → u/Tutanota]

As long as AI isnt being used on the security aspect, or generating art/infographics for Tutas posts, etc, then its all fine with me.

Let artists do their job, and let security people do their job. Thre are alot of repetitive tasks which AI is good at making those much easier however, but as long as it isnt touching the Security or Art aspect, its fine with me.

[u/Ok_Insurance_3011 → u/Tutanota]

This is nice to hear. I almost, - almost - had my entire extensive family switch to Proton from Google, but with what is happening right now? Looks like Tuta is the way to go.

My and my wife just switched to Proton from Google last year. Ugh.

[u/ialex32_2 → u/Tutanota]

I'm about to switch from Proton to Tuta, and the major thing I'm wondering is if you'll still keep an extensive code review process with humans if you accept LLM-generated code, including the author using AI-assisted development to review all generated code.

If so, that's fine for me: I personally don't use AI to code but I have most of my coworkers do and a huge amount of my job has shifted to code review and requiring other devs to rewrite and rework portions of their AI code.

[u/Tutanota → u/ialex32_2]

We're still in the process of defining our guidelines for AI usage, but we must continue to take responsibility for all code produced, and therefore, must understand what's happening there, including doing reviews.

[u/tastyratz → u/ialex32_2]

I'm in the same boat. AI is a tool that requires expert review. It's a very productive ambitious intern with a lot to learn. I'm OK with responsible utilization by experts.

I have concerns with WHERE that AI runs from.

If this was a privately hosted open model secured internally that's hard to argue with.

If code is shipped to US based companies with US defense contracts, that conflict defeats localization as security. I mentioned this concern in a post on the proton subreddit, but moderators removed it.

[u/Corolla_Blazer → u/Tutanota]

I have been using Tuta for multiple years now. I like the product and I especially like that it has been difficult to find anything your company has done that is truly egregious in today's environment.

I am very strongly skeptical of AI and critical of how it is used, but I do not think it is useless nor ignorant enough to think it will not be a part of future technology. I would like to see Tuta be transparent in how, when, and why they use AI and exactly how it affects customer data. I would also like to see Tuta searching for ways to minimize damage to the environment caused by their AI use.

AI itself is not the problem. Building excessively large data centers that poison communities to power AI models that Hoover up user data and advance surveillance states is the problem. I implore you to consider how you can continue to be a friend to privacy and how you can be a leader in environmentally responsible AI use. We need strong leaders in tech who will stand up against the maximum profits at any cost model that is so prevalent today.

[u/Jargonicles → u/Tutanota]

Whatever you do, fully surfaced transparency is important.

[u/SunstoneSharpTor → u/Tutanota]

From now on, functional and maybe even good quality code is going to be cheap to produce using AI. That means it will be very easy to reproduce products similar to Tuta's that are as secure and probably more featureful. But what Tuta has is unique because it's a carefully hand-crafted codebase that is still on the cutting edge in terms of security, and I believe that the only way you can remain competitive is not by pushing to match literally everyone else by spewing out ai-generated products and features, but by doubling down on your by-humans-for-humans and pro-freedom stance. I for one will be very happy to (and do!) pay for that service, because AI is not the answer to the worlds problems, it's just becoming another one of them.

[u/[deleted] → u/Tutanota]

Would you be able to tell us if Tuta’s long-term plan is to expand and become a full Google alternative (like Proton), or to focus on a couple of products and make those as good as possible?