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- The founder and CEO of Proton, Andy Yen, likes to take up customer calls or answer support tickets.
- Yen told the BBC that by doing this he can keep track of what customers actually need from the firm.
- Uber's CEO also did a stint as a driver to better understand the experience of its frontline workers.
A tech CEO likes to take a hands-on approach to leading his company and this includes working on the frontline with customers to get a better understanding of their needs.
Andy Yen, the founder and CEO of Proton, was interviewed by the BBC for its CEO Secrets Series. Proton, which was founded in 2014 in Geneva, Switzerland, specializes in privacy focused online services such a Proton Mail which is a secure email service. It now has over 400 staff.
"Running a tech company is not like running a coffee shop," Yen said in the interview. "You can actually go your entire career without ever meeting a customer because customers don't come in and talk to you."
He explained that CEOs need to "practically reach out," to customers to actually get to know them.
"This can mean answering customer support tickets, taking up customer calls, or being on a sales call, because if you don't do this you can really lose track of what your customers actually need from you."
Proton was one of 14 tech firms that called on the EU to stop giants like Meta and Google from "surveillance-based" advertising in 2021. Yen told Insider at the time that it undermined users' "fundamental rights to privacy."
Other CEOs like Uber's Dara Khosrowshahi have also taken up the practise of engaging with customers directly and putting themselves in the shoes of frontline workers.
Khosrowshahi spent a small period of time as an Uber driver in 2022 and said he realized that the company doesn't pay enough attention to drivers and delivery drivers' experiences in the app.
He even created an all-hands presentation for Uber employees called "Why we suck," which emphasized the importance of celebrating its drivers more.