Proton AG asking Standard Notes founder to stop a new project — worth discussing

[NidhalSaidani (Nidhal Saïdani)]

Mo Bitar (founder of Standard Notes, acquired by Proton in 2024) just shared that Proton’s legal team asked him to stop working on his new project, Shape, citing a non-compete clause.

What’s interesting is not just the legal dispute itself, but what it says about Proton as a company that publicly positions itself as pro-privacy, pro-freedom, and pro-open ecosystem. Using non-competes to block a former founder from building something new raises questions about how these values are applied in practice.

https://x.com/moughxyz/status/2008921646791344545?s=20
Received a strongly worded email from @ProtonPrivacy’s legal team today, claiming they have a monopoly on encrypted tools.

I like Proton but this is not cool.

Proton asked me to stop.

[Langley]

Before we begin speculating, I’d like to read what that section 7 is in the Share Purchase Agreement.

Also, is Mo not using ProtonMail? That looks like a Gmail interface, no?

[privacy.slouchy]

Im not terribly surprised or offended tbh. As great as Proton is (am a customer myself), they’re still a business under a capitalist economy.

The incentive structure is pretty unequivocally aligned to motivate this kind of action: capture more market share by challenging any perceived competition, whenever and however possible. We don’t say much when they publish cute marketing material clowning on their Big Tech competitors, but that knife does cut both ways

If this bothers you, take some time to set up recurring donations to your three favorite FLOSS projects. Developing & maintaining valuable projects requires resources & money. If developers cant sustain this on grants & donations, the only alternative is a paid business model where concerns like profit & proprietary interests have to get considered

[anonymous520]

I don’t see anything wrong with Proton enforcing a signed agreement.

Mo says in the video he thinks its a misunderstanding.

@Langley

Before we begin speculating, I’d like to read what that section 7 is

This is the most reasonable course of action. Without knowing this its impossible to make a judgement.

[jonah (Jonah Aragon)]

I just loaded up shape.work’s website and honestly I think Bitar is crazy if he’s trying to claim this doesn’t directly compete with Proton. What he appears to be building is clearly exactly what Proton bought Standard Notes for in the first place, and he should understand that better than anyone.

That he evidently only has to wait one year is more than generous honestly, given how much time he and Proton both know Proton will need to integrate the Standard Notes purchase into their stack effectively. And Proton is saying only not to offer it until Jan 2027, not that he can’t build it in the meantime, which is pretty unreasonably nice of them as well.

Unless Bitar is disputing the non-compete exists in the first place, which I don’t think is in question, publishing this email puts him and Shape in a pretty bad light, and immediately puts Shape in the same shifty category as Skiff in my mind. Yikes

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From https://x.com/moughxyz/status/2008939508675338582

The question is not what I signed, but what constitutes egregious similarity. Shape is centered around a team discussion forum, […]

Arguably Proton’s primary product, email

[…] group chat, […]

Proton has Meet now, plus they are a communications platform, see above. That you use bubbles instead of emails doesn’t change this really

[…] and task management, none of which Proton offers.

Proton doesn’t offer this yet, but he knows full well it’s why they bought Standard Notes, which is precisely why the non-compete would exist. This guy is being super naive thinking he can sell out his product and immediately compete with the people he sold out to. You can’t keep your cake and eat it too, if he wanted to run an E2EE workspace so bad he should’ve not sold Standard Notes

[gregandcin]

I agree with most of this. HOWEVER

@jonah

, given how much time he and Proton both know Proton will need to integrate the Standard Notes purchase into their stack effectively.

Standard Notes and Proton have made clear multiple times that Standard Notes will remain an independent org that will not integrate with the rest of the Proton Suite, most recently mentioned in SN’s latest blog post 2025 update: What’s new and what's next — Decrypted | Standard Notes

[jonah (Jonah Aragon)]

That is absolutely not what they’ve said. What they’ve always said is that Standard Notes will remain a standalone project. It’s extremely implausible that Standard Notes features won’t also make it into Proton’s workspace services, while Standard Notes exists standalone.

Even if so though, Standard Notes itself is still a Proton product and even if it is never integrated into the Proton-branded suite. Proton’s still selling it as a service, and Shape’s knowledge base features clearly directly compete with Standard Notes itself, while other Shape features compete with Proton’s other offerings.

[JG]

Proton is a serious company. I’m sure their lawyers know what they’re doing. There are enough similarities between what Proton offers and what Shape is and hence would most likely indeed be in violation.

Mo however can put Proton is a bad position. Should this escalate, Proton would have no option to but to sue. And it would be very easy to make Proton look bad considering all the good things they stand for that OP here mentions.

Mo also however is in a unique position to really make the product mature such that when he is able to release it, the release is stable and fully usable after developing it more in 2026.

Also, seeing his interview with Ente’s Vishnu and this video, it doesn’t appear like Mo understands the intricacies of how to maintain professional relationships by not burning bridges nor does he appears to have thought this departure from Proton through. It also seems like he was expecting to be treated different as an employee at Proton and that his hard work wasn’t recognized enough. This could be misplaced understanding of work culture as Mo had not worked in a company/office before since he was developing SN in a small team. In other words, Mo posses talent to make great products but doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to work in a company setting with other teams and players outside of a small team that he sets rules for.

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Sorry, I don’t mean to come off as overly judgemental. These are just observations from what I know of him thus far.

[jonah (Jonah Aragon)]

A YouTube comment seems unlikely to change his mind but I will hope for the best anyways

@JG

And it would be very easy to make Proton look bad considering all the good things they stand for that OP here mentions.

I’m unconvinced this would happen after watching his video and considering both positions, plus I don’t think Shape has enough going for them to get “underdog” support from some of the community. Namely it doesn’t seem like it’ll ever be open-source, so that eliminates probably most of the people who might choose to support Shape over Proton in a fight like this to be honest.

[JG]

Hmm. These comments (and yours) is going to be a hard pill for him to swallow but he should. Not only its going to be the right thing to do but also the mature thing to do and not escalate this further.

The man sold his tool for a fare share and then quit his paying job at the same company who bought it. Not understanding the medium to long term consequences is on him. He had a golden opportunity to work at Proton and continue building more and better (with their resources) but here we are.

[mo (Mo Bitar)]

Hey @jonah, saw your comment on the YouTube video.

Interesting discussion.

@jonah

Namely it doesn’t seem like it’ll ever be open-source

It will definitely be open source

@JG

Mo posses talent to make great products but doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to work in a company setting

This is very true

Let me read some of the responses here in more detail and see if I can share more thoughts.

Here is a paraphrased reading of a non-compete that is effectively similar to the one in place, since a few were curious:

engaging in any business that competes with the business of the Company in order to perform a role similar to the one in the Seller’s last signed employment agreement with the Company (Engineering Manager), where “the business of the Company” means the services offered by Company at the time of termination of the Seller’s last employment agreement.

@jonah you seem to have a very strong and clear opinion here, so maybe I can get to the bottom of what you see. As a thought experiment, at what threshold would you find a product a violation of this?

If we just did encrypted task management, would that be a violation?

If we added Slack-style team chat, would that be a violation?

1-on-1 chat?

Discussion forum?

[JG]

@mo

It will definitely be open source

Fantastic! Thanks for confirming!

@mo

This is very true

Glad you also posses self awareness.

@mo

Here is a paraphrased reading of a non-compete

Reads like the standard boiler plate. Nothing special.

@mo

at what threshold would you find a product a violation of this?

This would be a decision for the lawyers and the judge to evaluate and make a decision. Is there an objective metric or a scale here? Not sure and I am no expert. Though product owners and managers could also be the people to answer this too.

–

Thank you for chiming in Mo! Appreciate you engaging and trying to clear things.

[mo (Mo Bitar)]

@JG

This would be a decision for the lawyers and the judge to evaluate and make a decision. Is there an objective metric or a scale here? Not sure and I am no expert. Though product owners and managers could also be the people to answer this too.

Indeed. Well, as you may have noticed, I’m not as business savvy as the folks at Proton (clearly). I can assure you that they are very good at suit-and-tie things (clearly). I will never say anything disparaging about Andy or Antonio (board chair), because I still consider them friends and mentors. But I do think what’s happening here is an overreach that I do not take lightly.

I assure you that I did not get rich off the acquisition (think more like the 401k of someone 10 years in the workforce; it is to me a retirement account that I did not have access to during the long years of indie work). The acquisition was in fact more of an acquihire, as evidenced by the fact that our team was instantly repurposed to work on Docs.

In my estimation, Proton is clearly something, but it’s not “any software used in a work environment that is encrypted.”

[jonah (Jonah Aragon)]

Thank you for joining and reading these comments.

I mean, I can only tell you my opinion based on what you’ve shared and public knowledge of Proton. You have the most knowledge here, so I could be wrong…

@mo

As a thought experiment, at what threshold would you find a product a violation of this?

…however, from my perspective I think Proton has a very good argument that any sort of workspace collaboration tools are competing with their business. Proton wants to be the Google Workspace of the EU essentially.

Proton Mail is a business communication tool, just like 1-on-1 chats, group chats, or a forum would be. Any changes to the interface of how those messages look don’t really change the fact that at the end of the day they’re all tools that employees are going to use to send messages to each other.

Your version of encrypted task management is functionally the same software that you sold to Proton. I don’t actually know if collaboration is possible with SN, maybe currently it is not, but even so you sold your notes/todo software to a company that specializes in E2EE collaboration tools, it seems clear that the intent of the acquisition was to add this functionality to Proton eventually, and the non-compete agreement gives them the time they need to do so.

To me, I feel like we should be able to agree that you are at least working in the same industry as Proton, and realistically you are targeting the same customers.

For Proton to not be mad about it (in what seems like an actionable way) it seems like you would have to be working in a completely different sector. Like, just for example, say you were building a location sharing app like Apple Find My, but it’s end-to-end encrypted and cross-platform… I don’t think Proton would have any argument against you merely because it’s end-to-end encrypted. They don’t have a monopoly on encryption itself.

But you’re building a “workspace” and I just don’t personally see how that’s ever going to be acceptable

@mo

it’s not “any software used in a work environment that is encrypted.”

…and they’re not saying any software used in a work environment IMO, they’re saying any collaboration/documentation software used in a work environment. If you were building like, E2EE expense management software or something, that’d likely not be an issue either.

[JG]

Other than your unwillingness (for whatever personal reasons) to continue working at Proton post “acquihire”, was Shape really something you could not build at and with Proton or did you only want to do this yourself or again in a small team (especially since you’ve had this idea for a while now)?

Or was Proton not supportive of you pursuing new products you came up with as long as you were there? Or was it because you’d have to work to their tune and make decisions for and on the product accordingly even though it was going to be your idea/new creation?

I’m just trying to understand why not build this with Proton when you seemingly had the resources and other talent at the company with whom you could have made Shape.

–

(Perhaps an off topic comment in this thread but its still relevant so I ask nonetheless. You may feel free to not answer should you not want to disclose any pertinent details)

[anonymous528]

@JG

This would be a decision for the lawyers and the judge

This is a weird take. The defendant would have incentive to say that it doesn’t compete, and the prosecutor would have incentive to say that it does. And the judge should always defer this kind of task to experts if they aren’t one themselves in order to make a decision.

They may have the final say of what gets to be legally, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be a debate about it. In fact, that’s even more reason to debate.

[JG]

@jonah

I feel like we should be able to agree that you are at least working in the same industry as Proton, and realistically you are targeting the same customers.

This I think is the operative statement with which I can only agree. Hence the letter Mo received and hence the most likely the reason for that non compete violation.

[Cyber-Typhoon (Always leveling up)]

@Langley

Also, is Mo not using ProtonMail? That looks like a Gmail interface, no?

This comment made me laugh.

Now, is it a Gmail or not?

[mo (Mo Bitar)]

@Jonah a well-reasoned response.

I think the problem with software is that you can simplify its English-description to make many different software sound the same. It depends on the framing.

In any case, I’m certainly capable of seriously entertaining and understanding points of view even if they are not the ones I hold. It is after all how we come to accept new ideas generally speaking

I’ll check in a little later if there are any new questions or things I can share. (@JG just saw your question, I’ll come on a little later to answer, I have to go AFK for a bit).

Appreciate you guys having me and being welcoming.

[phnx]

@jonah

Realistically, you are targeting the same customers.

To me, there is a pretty big difference between targeting the same customers and actually competing. Signal and Proton also target the same customers but obviously don’t compete with each other since their offerings are completely different.

Admittedly, this is less of a clear-cut case, but I think as it stands, shape.work competes more with what Proton perhaps envisions itself becoming rather than what it actually is today. If someone were to subscribe to shape.work, I cannot imagine a scenario where that would in any way affect a decision to subscribe to Proton with its current offerings.