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[00:00]
A
Companies are getting an increasing amount of power and the government is not doing much to help people. And that's where a company like Do Not Pay steps in. It's really about power to the people and give it to ordinary people. Jeff Bezos at Amazon said, consumer expectations are constantly rising. And I really believe in that. So the best people to invest in, because they have everything to lose. If someone's worked at a big company like OpenAI for five years, maybe they live a cushy lifestyle, they have a multimillion dollar house, and they don't have what it takes to build an incredible company. Meanwhile, someone who's just dropped out of college, the first thing they'll do is they'll build the product and actually build something useful.
[00:42]
B
All right, guys, we got Joshua Browder here, CEO of Do Not Pay. We're at a four conference. How's it going, man?
[00:48]
A
Good. Thank you for having me.
[00:49]
B
Yeah. Did you speak yet?
[00:50]
A
No, I'm speaking in two hours.
[00:51]
B
Okay, what's the game plan?
[00:53]
A
Well, this is my third year speaking, and so every year I want to have different content. So I'm talking about really new stuff in 2025 that we're working on.
[01:01]
B
Yeah. So you're still innovating with Do Not Pay?
[01:03]
A
Yes.
[01:04]
B
Yeah. Because you guys already help a lot of issues. I mean, we got a whole list here of stuff.
[01:07]
A
But so I started the company really before the AI wave with getting people out parking tickets. And back then it was a rules based system, but now we're doing much more sophisticated things like live negotiations with big companies. Wow. And sometimes the big companies have AI. You know, like when you talk to a Comcast chatbot and we have AI, so it's actually an AI versus AI warfare.
[01:28]
B
So when you say live negotiations, is that text based or audio?
[01:32]
A
So it started out as text based, but now we're increasingly doing audio. The models have gotten fast enough and convincing enough where we have sometimes have AI phone models negotiate people's cell phone plans and things like that. And we have to be really careful about prompting the AI in the right way. So the conversation goes well.
[01:50]
B
Yeah. See, to me, that is solving a massive problem because a lot of people don't like confrontation, they don't like negotiating. So if you're able to have an AI bot do that for you, that that could save you and make you a lot of money. Right.
[02:00]
A
These big companies know that no one has the time and the energy to jump through all these hoops, but that's a good job for AI. And so it Will make it a much more efficient world in my view.
[02:09]
B
Yeah. And everyone has a phone, so saving 20 bucks a month on a phone bill, I mean that's, that's pretty massive. Right.
[02:14]
A
And it's a well known secret, if you go to a company and make a fuss and say you might cancel, they are going to give you some discount and so you can jump through those hips.
[02:22]
B
LinkedIn's the best at that.
[02:24]
A
Oh, I didn't know that.
[02:25]
B
Oh, you didn't know that?
[02:26]
A
Yeah, you're teaching me something.
[02:27]
B
Go cancel your LinkedIn Premium and then you'll get an email the same day. Do you want 50% off?
[02:32]
A
Interesting.
[02:32]
B
Yeah. Actually not even email those. As soon as you press I want to cancel, it'll say, do you want it for 50% off? And I'm sure a lot of companies operate that way.
[02:41]
A
Yes.
[02:42]
B
Are you still using this a lot for parking tickets or you've kind of evolved so pocket.
[02:46]
A
We've appealed millions of tickets, but. But our main business is really about refunds, negotiations and fighting big companies.
[02:53]
B
Yeah. Another big issue you helped with is flight delays, right?
[02:58]
A
That's right. In my home area, Europe, you can get hundreds of euros in compensation if your flight is delayed. And even in the US it will get you customer service based compensation.
[03:09]
B
Wow. How many hours does it have to be delayed to qualify?
[03:12]
A
Well, in the US they can give you miles just for an hour delay. In the UK and eu, I believe it's three hours.
[03:20]
B
Okay. For an hour delay. I feel like every flight I'm on lately is delayed.
[03:25]
A
Yeah, but I'm not AI. You should ask the AI, not me.
[03:28]
B
Yeah. Also landlord disputes. You helped with that.
[03:31]
A
Exactly. Getting people's security deposits back. Help fighting these big corporate landlords like Blackrock that own an increasing number of homes in the U.S. especially here in Nevada.
[03:42]
B
Oh yeah. Well, the market crashed, I think in 08 here and 70% of the inventory was on the market.
[03:49]
A
Yeah. And people are fed up. It seems like companies are getting an increasing amount of power and the government is not doing much to help people. And that's where a company like Do Not Pay steps in. Here at the AI4 conference, a lot of these companies are helping big corporations with AI but for me it's really about power to the people and give it to ordinary people.
[04:10]
B
Yeah. For SPACs, you're solving a huge issue. These people don't know what to do. Right.
[04:14]
A
Yeah.
[04:15]
B
So to have a company and it's pretty easy to use this. I was on the site, seemed pretty.
[04:19]
A
Simple and there's lots of rights that people don't even know they had. Like one example is every time you get a spam call, there's a law, it's called the Telephone Consumer Protection act, that allows you to get $1,500 in compensation. But these robo callers, they use fake names and fake numbers, so it's hard to track them down. And at Do Not Pay, we've built a trap. And the way the trap works is when they try and sell you something, you can give them a special Do Not Pay card.
[04:44]
B
Wow.
[04:44]
A
And they run the card. It of course gets declined, but it gets their business name, address, all the details you need to generate a demand letter for the AI to get that compensation.
[04:55]
B
Feel I might put my card everywhere on the Internet. Just collect fifteen hundred dollars.
[04:59]
A
Yeah. We're really big on these card products. We've got a card that you can use for free trials that you can. Because no one remembers to cancel and of course gets charged. And so it's actually AI and fintech where it will get you through any free trial page and the card will pretend to be a good card, but when the subscription converts, it declines. It's not linked to the consumers either. We call it free trial surfing.
[05:24]
B
That is brilliant. Because that's happened to me so many times. I probably spent thousands of dollars forgetting about free trials that my card was connected to.
[05:31]
A
Yeah. So the Do Not Pay team is a. I started it in school, but it's a bunch of people who are browsing Reddit at 2am looking for kind of tricks like that that we can scale to the world, that maybe people don't have the amount of time as us and technology can save them the time in doing it.
[05:46]
B
Reddit's a great platform for honest information.
[05:48]
A
Yeah.
[05:49]
B
It's probably my favorite social media because there's so many other. I think it's the anonymous component of it. Right.
[05:55]
A
Yeah. We have a lot of privacy products. We have actually one, it's called a nuclear privacy. And what it will do is it will spam every data broker and email provider and marketing company. Probably a lot of sponsors here. Don't quote me on that. And it will say, delete my data. And the reason we call it a nuclear option is because some people like, can't even live their lives after they. Because they can't get any discounts or anything because they scared to be emailed from these companies.
[06:22]
B
Wow. So it deletes their.
[06:24]
A
Deletes their data from all the marketing companies.
[06:27]
B
Interesting.
[06:27]
A
And some people don't like being Tracked. But others maybe do like that personalization. So we call it nuclear, I guess.
[06:34]
B
So many spam calls and texts. Like it's gotten to the point where I might change my number.
[06:38]
A
Yeah, it's really bad. But the new number that'll just come through, it might even increase it because they look up new registrations and they especially spam those because they have less experience.
[06:49]
B
Holy. That's crazy. I didn't know that. I gotta ask about the Peter Thiel Fellowship. What was it like learning from Peter Thiel?
[06:56]
A
Yeah, so I. It was my dream to go to Stanford from the uk and three and a half years in, I took the Thiel Fellowship where he gives you 100,000 to drop out or take a two year break from college. And for me, it really changed everything because even at a place like Stanford, a lot of my classmates wanted to go work at Google and Facebook. And just having 19 other young people who wanted to build huge companies and also previous classes because they'd have retreats. And actually last week we had our first ever Thiel fellow go public. Dylan Field with Figma. Actually, there have been previous companies that went public, but that was a huge one. I think a $60 billion IPO.
[07:37]
B
Damn.
[07:38]
A
And I'll give you a quick statistic on the Thiel Fellowship. So they have 350 teal fellows and 35 of them have built a company valued at more than $1 billion. So if you're a Thiel fellow, you have a 1 in 10 chance of building a billion dollar company, which is more than mit, more than Y Combinator, which is a big accelerator and it beats every other program and it's such a special place.
[08:01]
B
That's so nuts. Because he's taking these people from scratch. Right. They don't have companies and it's a.
[08:06]
A
Nonprofit, so they actually give you a grant. So that he doesn't take any equity is very generous.
[08:11]
B
Wow. What do you think stood out with your application that made him approve you?
[08:14]
A
So I applied in 2016 when I was a sophomore in Stanford and I got rejected. And then I applied again in 2018, 2019, and they finally let me in. And so they fly 40 finalists out. So tens of thousands of people apply every year and they whittle it down, whittle it down. And it gets to 40 people.
[08:33]
B
Yeah. And shout out to today's sponsor, Quince.
[08:37]
C
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[09:41]
A
The 40 people, they interview them. And I actually do some interviews now, but when I was interviewing back then, there would be a long wait time because there'd only be one or two interviews at a time. And so they did a game for the interviewees while they were waiting. And it was a pitch competition where everyone stood up and said what they were working on and they gave all the prospective candidates Monopoly money and who you could give your monopoly money to the most exciting ideas. And I think because I was giving power to the people, I won the monopoly competition. So maybe I was on the fence and that's what got me through.
[10:15]
B
Wow. Well done. Well done for the people. You also have Browder Capital. So you're investing in other companies now?
[10:21]
A
Well, mainly Thiel fellows. So I'm lucky to be an investor in more teal fellows than everyone. Anyone. I'm in 43 at least. Wow. And I think high school and college dropouts are the best people to invest in because they have everything to lose. If someone's worked at a big company like OpenAI for five years, maybe they live a cushy lifestyle, they have a multimillion dollar house and they don't have what it takes to build an incredible company. Meanwhile, someone who's just dropped out of college, the first thing they'll do is they'll build the product and actually build something useful.
[10:53]
B
What a statement. I love that high school and college dropouts are the best ones to invest in.
[10:59]
A
I have a friend, he says either you want to invest in the high school and college dropouts or you want to invest in Elon Musk. Everyone in between. It's kind of shady.
[11:07]
B
Yeah. Out of those 43 investments, any of them really standing out at the moment.
[11:11]
A
I'm lucky. I've invested in several unicorns. I was a faster investor in a company called owner.com, which is now a multibillion dollar company. First investor in a company called Micro One, which closed at half a billion last week. And I'm now on the board of that company. And I was, I wasn't the first investor, but I was an early investor in Figma and so that was nice.
[11:32]
B
On. Wow, that's impressive, man. So did you make your capital from Do Not Pay or so Do Not.
[11:37]
A
Pay is profitable and pays dividends. And my very first investment, I was actually interviewing him for the Thiel Fellowship because once you're a fellow they help select the future classes. And I met this guy, Adam Guild and he struck me as one of the top 0.1% of people I've ever met. And the reason was that he was trying to save his mum's dog business during COVID actually using AI by trying to beat Google search so that it ranked at the top. And so I interviewed him, had lunch with him and I thought if, if now's the opportunity to invest, this is the time because this guy is truly something special. And I didn't have any money to your point. My company wasn't yet paying dividends, I didn't have a fund or anything. But I did have one source of money which is that when you get the Thiel fellowship, you get $100,000 price. And I thought, and it just hit my bank account, I'm going to take all of it and invest in this guy. So I became his first investor. Fast forward a few years, it's now a billion dollar company and I thought, this seems to be going well, maybe I should raise a fund to keep it going. And so I'd now raise four funds to do it. And it's institutionally backed by Sequoia and fund of funds.
[12:47]
B
Well done. What a story. So your risk tolerance is very high.
[12:51]
A
Well, I think I'm a risk taker at heart. Taking my savings and putting it in a random college drop. Now actually he was a high school dropout.
[13:00]
B
Wow. So 18 year old, you put in all $100,000.
[13:04]
A
He just turned 18, I think. And that's important because when I invest in these entrepreneurs, sometimes I have to literally wait for their 18th birthday because they can't sign the contract until they turn 18.
[13:14]
B
That's crazy.
[13:14]
A
Yeah.
[13:15]
B
So you see like investing in really young founders then.
[13:19]
A
Yeah, I mean for me it's about being a first time entrepreneur. I'm 10 years into do Not Pay and I've learned a lot of lessons. And so I would love to invest in first time entrepreneurs where I can help them move much faster with pitching. Getting on the Silicon Valley circuit. I do generally make the entrepreneurs move to San Francisco. I joke with them that the second they moved to San Francisco the valuation of that company doubled because it's such a great ecosystem.
[13:43]
B
That's funny. Is it still like that? Because I've heard it's died out a little bit.
[13:46]
A
The new mayor is very popular and especially for AI, it's never been more like that. It's such a terrible lifestyle to live there that the only thing you can do is build and work. I mean, there's nothing to do. It's not like Vegas.
[13:59]
B
That's true. Yeah. I've been there once and that seemed like everything there.
[14:02]
A
It's good. You got in one trip.
[14:04]
B
I'm not sure what I came back saying. I probably wouldn't live there because first of all, the real estate's super expensive.
[14:10]
A
Yeah.
[14:10]
B
You're spending millions on like a decent spot.
[14:13]
A
Well, it's expensive for like not even that nice for like a White House.
[14:17]
B
Exactly. So you're still. So you split time with there in Europe or.
[14:20]
A
I'm all in on San Francisco because I have to be there. Unfortunately. I'm jealous of you. Where do you live if you don't?
[14:26]
B
Summerlin. Yeah, Vegas.
[14:27]
A
Oh, great. Great.
[14:28]
B
It's hard to beat. You get good real estate, good value, it's cheap here. Always a conference.
[14:32]
A
I. I like pickleball. They have good pickleball.
[14:34]
B
Good pickleball? Yeah. Lifetime has some good course. Yeah. You play outdoors or indoors?
[14:38]
A
Both.
[14:39]
B
What's your rating?
[14:40]
A
3.5. Not so good. What about you?
[14:42]
B
Not bad. I don't have one. I just play casual. But I know I kind of know like the top ratings. Yeah. Did you invest in any pickleball companies?
[14:49]
A
No, I don't think it's a good business. Maybe I want to invest in one for fun. Let me know.
[14:53]
B
Yeah. Well, at least you're objective with it because even though you like it, you didn't invest in it.
[14:58]
A
Yeah. Especially with the young founders in. One has to really be careful to separate like what's what you think is a good idea and what actually is a good business.
[15:07]
B
How do you recommend people do that? I guess. Or do you think it's like built within you?
[15:11]
A
In my world, we live in such a place of jargon. So I talk to some entrepreneurs and they can't describe what they're building in English. So for example, they say, I'm building AI observability for the cloud infrastructure. And I'm thinking, what does that even mean? And I then I talk to other entrepreneurs and they have a concrete problem, like we're helping OpenAI train their models and things like that, and it makes more sense.
[15:36]
B
That's so true. Because even at this AI conference, I can't understand half these people have really good swag. Yeah. No, but literally half the booths here, I'm like reading the booth and I'm like, I don't understand it.
[15:47]
A
I was saying to my sister who is here with me, walking around. This conference has taught me a valuable lesson, which is if I'm ever going to start a new company, I want to have a really crisp dot com, like a one word dot com. Because some of these names, they're like, you can't even pronounce them.
[16:02]
B
Yeah, that cost you a lot these days, those premium domains.
[16:05]
A
Yeah. But a famous vc, I think at the VC firm nfx said the most important company decision is your name. I'm not sure that's true, but it's definitely important.
[16:14]
B
It's definitely very valuable to have a good name.
[16:16]
A
Yeah.
[16:17]
B
But most important, I'd say the product or service is the most important, right?
[16:20]
A
Definitely.
[16:22]
B
Yeah. It's very rare. The first company you start is the one you keep going. So you're 10 years in.
[16:26]
A
Yes. I started because I got a huge number of tickets myself. And I joke that if you start a company for yourself, you at least have one customer.
[16:35]
B
Right, Good point. I had a lot of tickets in college too. Were yours in San Francisco?
[16:40]
A
San Francisco and actually London as well, growing up.
[16:42]
B
So is it like they're writing something wrong on the ticket? Basically.
[16:46]
A
And mainly the government is not following their own rules with the signage. And when I first launched in 2015, it was like a ChatGPT interface and I'm actually speaking in a few hours and I've got a screenshot of that early demo and obviously the design is a lot worse, but it looks exactly like ChatGPT. And people were like saying back then, you're crazy, no one wants to talk to a computer. So it's actually one of the first interfaces where someone could talk to a computer to get something done in that way. And it would ask you questions about your ticket, match you to a defense, and then generate the letter and send off to the right layout.
[17:19]
B
And that was in 2015.
[17:20]
A
Yeah, but this was if statements and decision based. So I was staying up until 4am coding tens of thousands of lines of code. If the user says this, do that. Just like, pumping it in like is crazy.
[17:33]
B
Now. I could call that for you in two minutes.
[17:35]
A
Yeah. And I think it's a good lesson. As entrepreneur, you constantly have to be innovating because now you can just ask ChatGPT to generate a letter for parking tickets. And so that's really what inspired me to build these more sophisticated products. Interesting, because I think Jeff Bezos at Amazon said consumer expectations are constantly rising. And I really believe in that.
[17:53]
B
Wow, that's smart. So you recognize that someone could eat your market share, so you pivoted.
[17:57]
A
Yeah, Just make it more sophisticated. What was exciting in 2015 is not exciting in 2025. And 10 years from now, who even knows? Maybe there'll be flying cars.
[18:07]
B
I mean, possibly.
[18:08]
A
Who knows?
[18:09]
B
AGI is on the horizon. Right. Where are you at in that whole debate?
[18:13]
A
So it could be controversial, but I think AGI is much further away than my colleagues in Silicon Valley like to say. And the reason is, I think, the transformer architecture. So the way GPT works is they've taken every book, every piece of human writing that they have access to and fed it into a statistical model. And there's only so good that that model and approach can be. And we might need a new architecture. So there's a new type of architecture called diffusion models, which is very early and very promising, but that's very different from the way ChatGPT works.
[18:48]
B
Interesting. That is interesting. Where can people watching this find you and find do not pay and sign up and everything?
[18:53]
A
I'm on Twitter now called X Joshua Browder and DoNotPay.com awesome.
[18:58]
B
Thanks for your time, man. Thank you for having me. Yup, check them out, guys. See you next time.
[19:02]
C
I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm.
[19:07]
B
Them. Thank you.

Summary7 min read

Digital Social Hour – Episode Summary

Episode: Joshua Browder: Why AGI Is Further Away Than Silicon Valley Claims | DSH #1688

Date: December 18, 2025
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Joshua Browder, CEO of Do Not Pay

Episode Overview

This episode features Joshua Browder, the innovative founder and CEO of Do Not Pay—a leading "robot lawyer" app empowering consumers to fight big corporations and legal bureaucracy using AI. Host Sean Kelly and Browder dive into the evolution of Do Not Pay, the company's expansion into live negotiations and fintech, investment philosophies inspired by the Thiel Fellowship, and Browder’s skeptical stance on the timeline for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The conversation candidly explores why young, hungry entrepreneurs are often the best bets, and digs deep into both practical consumer advocacy and the front lines of AI advancement.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Evolution of Do Not Pay

Starting Point and Mission
- Browder founded Do Not Pay as a means for ordinary people to reclaim power from large companies and bureaucracy, driven by personal frustration with parking tickets and corporate obstacles.
  
  "Companies are getting an increasing amount of power and the government is not doing much to help people. And that's where a company like Do Not Pay steps in. It's really about power to the people and give it to ordinary people." (00:00, Joshua Browder)
From Rules-Based to AI-Powered
- Initially, Do Not Pay was a rules-based system addressing parking tickets. With modern AI developments, it now offers live text and audio negotiations against corporations, even engaging in “AI vs. AI warfare” with company chatbots.
- The app can negotiate phone bills, refunds, flight delay compensation, security deposit disputes, and more on behalf of users.
  
  "Now we're doing much more sophisticated things like live negotiations with big companies ... sometimes the big companies have AI ... and we have AI, so it's actually an AI versus AI warfare." (01:06, Joshua Browder)
Fintech Innovations: Trap Cards & Free Trials
- Trap Card: Do Not Pay issues users a special card to bait spam callers, capturing the company’s information when the card is run, enabling demand letters for compensation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ($1,500 per violation).
  
  "We've built a trap. And the way the trap works is when they try and sell you something, you can give them a special Do Not Pay card ... it gets their business name ... all the details you need to generate a demand letter." (04:18, Joshua Browder)
- Free Trial Surfing: The app also provides users with virtual cards that let them sign up for free trials; when the trial converts to a paid subscription, the card declines, avoiding unplanned charges.
  
  "We call it free trial surfing." (04:59, Joshua Browder)
- Nuclear Privacy Option: A feature that spams all data brokers and marketers with deletion requests—a “nuclear” option for privacy but with tradeoffs.
  
  "It will spam every data broker and ... say, delete my data. ... Some people can't even live their lives after they [do this] because ... they can't get any discounts or anything." (05:55, Joshua Browder)

AI’s Role and the Future of AGI

Skepticism About Imminent AGI
- Browder expresses his belief that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is further away than many Silicon Valley peers claim—citing current architectural limitations in models like transformers (GPT) and noting the need for new directions such as diffusion models.
  
  "It could be controversial, but I think AGI is much further away than my colleagues in Silicon Valley like to say." (18:13, Joshua Browder) "There's only so good that that model and approach can be. And we might need a new architecture." (18:18, Joshua Browder)
Reflection on Technological Progress
- Browder recounts his early product (from 2015), which resembled ChatGPT before the AI wave, illustrating the constant need for innovation.
  
  "When I first launched in 2015, it was like a ChatGPT interface ... People were like saying back then, you're crazy, no one wants to talk to a computer." (16:45, Joshua Browder)
- He notes that what was once revolutionary is now easily replicated, citing rising consumer expectations.
  
  "What was exciting in 2015 is not exciting in 2025." (17:57, Joshua Browder) "Consumer expectations are constantly rising. And I really believe in that." (17:50, Joshua Browder)

Venture Investing Philosophy

The Power of Dropout Founders
- Browder is a strong advocate of investing in young, first-time entrepreneurs, especially high school and college dropouts, inspired by his experience with the Thiel Fellowship.
  
  "I think high school and college dropouts are the best people to invest in because they have everything to lose." (10:53, Joshua Browder) "If someone's worked at a big company like OpenAI for five years ... they don't have what it takes to build an incredible company." (10:44, Joshua Browder)
Origin Story: Thiel Fellowship & Investing
- The Thiel Fellowship gave Browder a $100,000 grant to drop out of Stanford and build his startup, profoundly changing his trajectory.
  
  "It was my dream to go to Stanford ... I took the Thiel Fellowship ... For me, it really changed everything." (06:56, Joshua Browder)
- Browder later invested his entire $100,000 Thiel grant into a high school dropout’s business, which eventually became a unicorn.
  
  "I thought, and it just hit my bank account, I'm going to take all of it and invest in this guy." (12:24, Joshua Browder)
Performance of Thiel Fellows
- The fellowship boasts a remarkable track record: “They have 350 Thiel Fellows and 35 of them have built a company valued at more than $1 billion.” (07:37, Joshua Browder)
Advice on Startups
- Favors concise, jargon-free pitches focused on concrete problems.
  
  "Some entrepreneurs ... can't describe what they're building in English. ... Others ... have a concrete problem." (15:11, Joshua Browder)
- Names and branding are important—but product and service ultimately matter more.
  
  "A famous vc ... said the most important company decision is your name. I'm not sure that's true, but it's definitely important." (16:04, Joshua Browder)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Consumer Advocacy:

“These big companies know that no one has the time and the energy to jump through all these hoops, but that's a good job for AI.” (02:00, Joshua Browder)
On Young Founders:

"If someone's worked at a big company like OpenAI for five years ... they don't have what it takes to build an incredible company. Meanwhile, someone who's just dropped out of college, the first thing they'll do is they'll build the product and actually build something useful." (10:44, Joshua Browder)
On Free Trial Surfing Tricks:

“That's brilliant. Because that's happened to me so many times. I probably spent thousands of dollars forgetting about free trials that my card was connected to.” (05:24, Sean Kelly)
On AGI Hype:

"It could be controversial, but I think AGI is much further away than my colleagues in Silicon Valley like to say." (18:13, Joshua Browder)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Power of Do Not Pay—mission and broader problem in consumer protection | | 01:06 | Evolution from parking tickets to AI-driven negotiations | | 03:30 | Landlord disputes and the widening reach of Do Not Pay | | 04:18 | Trap cards and fighting spam/robocalls | | 04:59 | 'Free Trial Surfing' fintech tool | | 05:55 | Nuclear privacy product | | 06:56 | Impact and details of the Thiel Fellowship | | 10:44 | Philosophy on investing in dropouts and young founders | | 11:37 | Browder’s high-risk investing—using Thiel grant for first investment | | 15:06 | How to differentiate real startup solutions from jargon-heavy pitches | | 16:45 | Early Do Not Pay as proto-ChatGPT, entrepreneurial evolution | | 17:50 | Importance of continual innovation and shifting consumer demands | | 18:13 | Browder’s reasons for AGI skepticism |

Tone & Flow

The conversation is frank, energetic, and filled with firsthand entrepreneurial insights. Browder candidly shares both philosophical and practical advice, drawing from stories of risk-taking, setbacks, and successes. Sean Kelly’s conversational prompts keep things brisk and relatable, with both host and guest showing real enthusiasm (and humor) around topics from fintech “hacks” to the quirks of Silicon Valley.

For listeners interested in consumer advocacy, startup investing, practical uses of AI, and realistic views on the speed of technological progress, this episode is direct, inspiring, and refreshingly myth-busting.

Find Do Not Pay online: donotpay.com
Follow Joshua Browder: @JoshuaBrowder on X (formerly Twitter)

Loading summary

Transcript137 lines

[00:00]
A
Companies are getting an increasing amount of power and the government is not doing much to help people. And that's where a company like Do Not Pay steps in. It's really about power to the people and give it to ordinary people. Jeff Bezos at Amazon said, consumer expectations are constantly rising. And I really believe in that. So the best people to invest in, because they have everything to lose. If someone's worked at a big company like OpenAI for five years, maybe they live a cushy lifestyle, they have a multimillion dollar house, and they don't have what it takes to build an incredible company. Meanwhile, someone who's just dropped out of college, the first thing they'll do is they'll build the product and actually build something useful.
[00:42]
B
All right, guys, we got Joshua Browder here, CEO of Do Not Pay. We're at a four conference. How's it going, man?
[00:48]
A
Good. Thank you for having me.
[00:49]
B
Yeah. Did you speak yet?
[00:50]
A
No, I'm speaking in two hours.
[00:51]
B
Okay, what's the game plan?
[00:53]
A
Well, this is my third year speaking, and so every year I want to have different content. So I'm talking about really new stuff in 2025 that we're working on.
[01:01]
B
Yeah. So you're still innovating with Do Not Pay?
[01:03]
A
Yes.
[01:04]
B
Yeah. Because you guys already help a lot of issues. I mean, we got a whole list here of stuff.
[01:07]
A
But so I started the company really before the AI wave with getting people out parking tickets. And back then it was a rules based system, but now we're doing much more sophisticated things like live negotiations with big companies. Wow. And sometimes the big companies have AI. You know, like when you talk to a Comcast chatbot and we have AI, so it's actually an AI versus AI warfare.
[01:28]
B
So when you say live negotiations, is that text based or audio?
[01:32]
A
So it started out as text based, but now we're increasingly doing audio. The models have gotten fast enough and convincing enough where we have sometimes have AI phone models negotiate people's cell phone plans and things like that. And we have to be really careful about prompting the AI in the right way. So the conversation goes well.
[01:50]
B
Yeah. See, to me, that is solving a massive problem because a lot of people don't like confrontation, they don't like negotiating. So if you're able to have an AI bot do that for you, that that could save you and make you a lot of money. Right.
[02:00]
A
These big companies know that no one has the time and the energy to jump through all these hoops, but that's a good job for AI. And so it Will make it a much more efficient world in my view.
[02:09]
B
Yeah. And everyone has a phone, so saving 20 bucks a month on a phone bill, I mean that's, that's pretty massive. Right.
[02:14]
A
And it's a well known secret, if you go to a company and make a fuss and say you might cancel, they are going to give you some discount and so you can jump through those hips.
[02:22]
B
LinkedIn's the best at that.
[02:24]
A
Oh, I didn't know that.
[02:25]
B
Oh, you didn't know that?
[02:26]
A
Yeah, you're teaching me something.
[02:27]
B
Go cancel your LinkedIn Premium and then you'll get an email the same day. Do you want 50% off?
[02:32]
A
Interesting.
[02:32]
B
Yeah. Actually not even email those. As soon as you press I want to cancel, it'll say, do you want it for 50% off? And I'm sure a lot of companies operate that way.
[02:41]
A
Yes.
[02:42]
B
Are you still using this a lot for parking tickets or you've kind of evolved so pocket.
[02:46]
A
We've appealed millions of tickets, but. But our main business is really about refunds, negotiations and fighting big companies.
[02:53]
B
Yeah. Another big issue you helped with is flight delays, right?
[02:58]
A
That's right. In my home area, Europe, you can get hundreds of euros in compensation if your flight is delayed. And even in the US it will get you customer service based compensation.
[03:09]
B
Wow. How many hours does it have to be delayed to qualify?
[03:12]
A
Well, in the US they can give you miles just for an hour delay. In the UK and eu, I believe it's three hours.
[03:20]
B
Okay. For an hour delay. I feel like every flight I'm on lately is delayed.
[03:25]
A
Yeah, but I'm not AI. You should ask the AI, not me.
[03:28]
B
Yeah. Also landlord disputes. You helped with that.
[03:31]
A
Exactly. Getting people's security deposits back. Help fighting these big corporate landlords like Blackrock that own an increasing number of homes in the U.S. especially here in Nevada.
[03:42]
B
Oh yeah. Well, the market crashed, I think in 08 here and 70% of the inventory was on the market.
[03:49]
A
Yeah. And people are fed up. It seems like companies are getting an increasing amount of power and the government is not doing much to help people. And that's where a company like Do Not Pay steps in. Here at the AI4 conference, a lot of these companies are helping big corporations with AI but for me it's really about power to the people and give it to ordinary people.
[04:10]
B
Yeah. For SPACs, you're solving a huge issue. These people don't know what to do. Right.
[04:14]
A
Yeah.
[04:15]
B
So to have a company and it's pretty easy to use this. I was on the site, seemed pretty.
[04:19]
A
Simple and there's lots of rights that people don't even know they had. Like one example is every time you get a spam call, there's a law, it's called the Telephone Consumer Protection act, that allows you to get $1,500 in compensation. But these robo callers, they use fake names and fake numbers, so it's hard to track them down. And at Do Not Pay, we've built a trap. And the way the trap works is when they try and sell you something, you can give them a special Do Not Pay card.
[04:44]
B
Wow.
[04:44]
A
And they run the card. It of course gets declined, but it gets their business name, address, all the details you need to generate a demand letter for the AI to get that compensation.
[04:55]
B
Feel I might put my card everywhere on the Internet. Just collect fifteen hundred dollars.
[04:59]
A
Yeah. We're really big on these card products. We've got a card that you can use for free trials that you can. Because no one remembers to cancel and of course gets charged. And so it's actually AI and fintech where it will get you through any free trial page and the card will pretend to be a good card, but when the subscription converts, it declines. It's not linked to the consumers either. We call it free trial surfing.
[05:24]
B
That is brilliant. Because that's happened to me so many times. I probably spent thousands of dollars forgetting about free trials that my card was connected to.
[05:31]
A
Yeah. So the Do Not Pay team is a. I started it in school, but it's a bunch of people who are browsing Reddit at 2am looking for kind of tricks like that that we can scale to the world, that maybe people don't have the amount of time as us and technology can save them the time in doing it.
[05:46]
B
Reddit's a great platform for honest information.
[05:48]
A
Yeah.
[05:49]
B
It's probably my favorite social media because there's so many other. I think it's the anonymous component of it. Right.
[05:55]
A
Yeah. We have a lot of privacy products. We have actually one, it's called a nuclear privacy. And what it will do is it will spam every data broker and email provider and marketing company. Probably a lot of sponsors here. Don't quote me on that. And it will say, delete my data. And the reason we call it a nuclear option is because some people like, can't even live their lives after they. Because they can't get any discounts or anything because they scared to be emailed from these companies.
[06:22]
B
Wow. So it deletes their.
[06:24]
A
Deletes their data from all the marketing companies.
[06:27]
B
Interesting.
[06:27]
A
And some people don't like being Tracked. But others maybe do like that personalization. So we call it nuclear, I guess.
[06:34]
B
So many spam calls and texts. Like it's gotten to the point where I might change my number.
[06:38]
A
Yeah, it's really bad. But the new number that'll just come through, it might even increase it because they look up new registrations and they especially spam those because they have less experience.
[06:49]
B
Holy. That's crazy. I didn't know that. I gotta ask about the Peter Thiel Fellowship. What was it like learning from Peter Thiel?
[06:56]
A
Yeah, so I. It was my dream to go to Stanford from the uk and three and a half years in, I took the Thiel Fellowship where he gives you 100,000 to drop out or take a two year break from college. And for me, it really changed everything because even at a place like Stanford, a lot of my classmates wanted to go work at Google and Facebook. And just having 19 other young people who wanted to build huge companies and also previous classes because they'd have retreats. And actually last week we had our first ever Thiel fellow go public. Dylan Field with Figma. Actually, there have been previous companies that went public, but that was a huge one. I think a $60 billion IPO.
[07:37]
B
Damn.
[07:38]
A
And I'll give you a quick statistic on the Thiel Fellowship. So they have 350 teal fellows and 35 of them have built a company valued at more than $1 billion. So if you're a Thiel fellow, you have a 1 in 10 chance of building a billion dollar company, which is more than mit, more than Y Combinator, which is a big accelerator and it beats every other program and it's such a special place.
[08:01]
B
That's so nuts. Because he's taking these people from scratch. Right. They don't have companies and it's a.
[08:06]
A
Nonprofit, so they actually give you a grant. So that he doesn't take any equity is very generous.
[08:11]
B
Wow. What do you think stood out with your application that made him approve you?
[08:14]
A
So I applied in 2016 when I was a sophomore in Stanford and I got rejected. And then I applied again in 2018, 2019, and they finally let me in. And so they fly 40 finalists out. So tens of thousands of people apply every year and they whittle it down, whittle it down. And it gets to 40 people.
[08:33]
B
Yeah. And shout out to today's sponsor, Quince.
[08:37]
C
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[09:41]
A
The 40 people, they interview them. And I actually do some interviews now, but when I was interviewing back then, there would be a long wait time because there'd only be one or two interviews at a time. And so they did a game for the interviewees while they were waiting. And it was a pitch competition where everyone stood up and said what they were working on and they gave all the prospective candidates Monopoly money and who you could give your monopoly money to the most exciting ideas. And I think because I was giving power to the people, I won the monopoly competition. So maybe I was on the fence and that's what got me through.
[10:15]
B
Wow. Well done. Well done for the people. You also have Browder Capital. So you're investing in other companies now?
[10:21]
A
Well, mainly Thiel fellows. So I'm lucky to be an investor in more teal fellows than everyone. Anyone. I'm in 43 at least. Wow. And I think high school and college dropouts are the best people to invest in because they have everything to lose. If someone's worked at a big company like OpenAI for five years, maybe they live a cushy lifestyle, they have a multimillion dollar house and they don't have what it takes to build an incredible company. Meanwhile, someone who's just dropped out of college, the first thing they'll do is they'll build the product and actually build something useful.
[10:53]
B
What a statement. I love that high school and college dropouts are the best ones to invest in.
[10:59]
A
I have a friend, he says either you want to invest in the high school and college dropouts or you want to invest in Elon Musk. Everyone in between. It's kind of shady.
[11:07]
B
Yeah. Out of those 43 investments, any of them really standing out at the moment.
[11:11]
A
I'm lucky. I've invested in several unicorns. I was a faster investor in a company called owner.com, which is now a multibillion dollar company. First investor in a company called Micro One, which closed at half a billion last week. And I'm now on the board of that company. And I was, I wasn't the first investor, but I was an early investor in Figma and so that was nice.
[11:32]
B
On. Wow, that's impressive, man. So did you make your capital from Do Not Pay or so Do Not.
[11:37]
A
Pay is profitable and pays dividends. And my very first investment, I was actually interviewing him for the Thiel Fellowship because once you're a fellow they help select the future classes. And I met this guy, Adam Guild and he struck me as one of the top 0.1% of people I've ever met. And the reason was that he was trying to save his mum's dog business during COVID actually using AI by trying to beat Google search so that it ranked at the top. And so I interviewed him, had lunch with him and I thought if, if now's the opportunity to invest, this is the time because this guy is truly something special. And I didn't have any money to your point. My company wasn't yet paying dividends, I didn't have a fund or anything. But I did have one source of money which is that when you get the Thiel fellowship, you get $100,000 price. And I thought, and it just hit my bank account, I'm going to take all of it and invest in this guy. So I became his first investor. Fast forward a few years, it's now a billion dollar company and I thought, this seems to be going well, maybe I should raise a fund to keep it going. And so I'd now raise four funds to do it. And it's institutionally backed by Sequoia and fund of funds.
[12:47]
B
Well done. What a story. So your risk tolerance is very high.
[12:51]
A
Well, I think I'm a risk taker at heart. Taking my savings and putting it in a random college drop. Now actually he was a high school dropout.
[13:00]
B
Wow. So 18 year old, you put in all $100,000.
[13:04]
A
He just turned 18, I think. And that's important because when I invest in these entrepreneurs, sometimes I have to literally wait for their 18th birthday because they can't sign the contract until they turn 18.
[13:14]
B
That's crazy.
[13:14]
A
Yeah.
[13:15]
B
So you see like investing in really young founders then.
[13:19]
A
Yeah, I mean for me it's about being a first time entrepreneur. I'm 10 years into do Not Pay and I've learned a lot of lessons. And so I would love to invest in first time entrepreneurs where I can help them move much faster with pitching. Getting on the Silicon Valley circuit. I do generally make the entrepreneurs move to San Francisco. I joke with them that the second they moved to San Francisco the valuation of that company doubled because it's such a great ecosystem.
[13:43]
B
That's funny. Is it still like that? Because I've heard it's died out a little bit.
[13:46]
A
The new mayor is very popular and especially for AI, it's never been more like that. It's such a terrible lifestyle to live there that the only thing you can do is build and work. I mean, there's nothing to do. It's not like Vegas.
[13:59]
B
That's true. Yeah. I've been there once and that seemed like everything there.
[14:02]
A
It's good. You got in one trip.
[14:04]
B
I'm not sure what I came back saying. I probably wouldn't live there because first of all, the real estate's super expensive.
[14:10]
A
Yeah.
[14:10]
B
You're spending millions on like a decent spot.
[14:13]
A
Well, it's expensive for like not even that nice for like a White House.
[14:17]
B
Exactly. So you're still. So you split time with there in Europe or.
[14:20]
A
I'm all in on San Francisco because I have to be there. Unfortunately. I'm jealous of you. Where do you live if you don't?
[14:26]
B
Summerlin. Yeah, Vegas.
[14:27]
A
Oh, great. Great.
[14:28]
B
It's hard to beat. You get good real estate, good value, it's cheap here. Always a conference.
[14:32]
A
I. I like pickleball. They have good pickleball.
[14:34]
B
Good pickleball? Yeah. Lifetime has some good course. Yeah. You play outdoors or indoors?
[14:38]
A
Both.
[14:39]
B
What's your rating?
[14:40]
A
3.5. Not so good. What about you?
[14:42]
B
Not bad. I don't have one. I just play casual. But I know I kind of know like the top ratings. Yeah. Did you invest in any pickleball companies?
[14:49]
A
No, I don't think it's a good business. Maybe I want to invest in one for fun. Let me know.
[14:53]
B
Yeah. Well, at least you're objective with it because even though you like it, you didn't invest in it.
[14:58]
A
Yeah. Especially with the young founders in. One has to really be careful to separate like what's what you think is a good idea and what actually is a good business.
[15:07]
B
How do you recommend people do that? I guess. Or do you think it's like built within you?
[15:11]
A
In my world, we live in such a place of jargon. So I talk to some entrepreneurs and they can't describe what they're building in English. So for example, they say, I'm building AI observability for the cloud infrastructure. And I'm thinking, what does that even mean? And I then I talk to other entrepreneurs and they have a concrete problem, like we're helping OpenAI train their models and things like that, and it makes more sense.
[15:36]
B
That's so true. Because even at this AI conference, I can't understand half these people have really good swag. Yeah. No, but literally half the booths here, I'm like reading the booth and I'm like, I don't understand it.
[15:47]
A
I was saying to my sister who is here with me, walking around. This conference has taught me a valuable lesson, which is if I'm ever going to start a new company, I want to have a really crisp dot com, like a one word dot com. Because some of these names, they're like, you can't even pronounce them.
[16:02]
B
Yeah, that cost you a lot these days, those premium domains.
[16:05]
A
Yeah. But a famous vc, I think at the VC firm nfx said the most important company decision is your name. I'm not sure that's true, but it's definitely important.
[16:14]
B
It's definitely very valuable to have a good name.
[16:16]
A
Yeah.
[16:17]
B
But most important, I'd say the product or service is the most important, right?
[16:20]
A
Definitely.
[16:22]
B
Yeah. It's very rare. The first company you start is the one you keep going. So you're 10 years in.
[16:26]
A
Yes. I started because I got a huge number of tickets myself. And I joke that if you start a company for yourself, you at least have one customer.
[16:35]
B
Right, Good point. I had a lot of tickets in college too. Were yours in San Francisco?
[16:40]
A
San Francisco and actually London as well, growing up.
[16:42]
B
So is it like they're writing something wrong on the ticket? Basically.
[16:46]
A
And mainly the government is not following their own rules with the signage. And when I first launched in 2015, it was like a ChatGPT interface and I'm actually speaking in a few hours and I've got a screenshot of that early demo and obviously the design is a lot worse, but it looks exactly like ChatGPT. And people were like saying back then, you're crazy, no one wants to talk to a computer. So it's actually one of the first interfaces where someone could talk to a computer to get something done in that way. And it would ask you questions about your ticket, match you to a defense, and then generate the letter and send off to the right layout.
[17:19]
B
And that was in 2015.
[17:20]
A
Yeah, but this was if statements and decision based. So I was staying up until 4am coding tens of thousands of lines of code. If the user says this, do that. Just like, pumping it in like is crazy.
[17:33]
B
Now. I could call that for you in two minutes.
[17:35]
A
Yeah. And I think it's a good lesson. As entrepreneur, you constantly have to be innovating because now you can just ask ChatGPT to generate a letter for parking tickets. And so that's really what inspired me to build these more sophisticated products. Interesting, because I think Jeff Bezos at Amazon said consumer expectations are constantly rising. And I really believe in that.
[17:53]
B
Wow, that's smart. So you recognize that someone could eat your market share, so you pivoted.
[17:57]
A
Yeah, Just make it more sophisticated. What was exciting in 2015 is not exciting in 2025. And 10 years from now, who even knows? Maybe there'll be flying cars.
[18:07]
B
I mean, possibly.
[18:08]
A
Who knows?
[18:09]
B
AGI is on the horizon. Right. Where are you at in that whole debate?
[18:13]
A
So it could be controversial, but I think AGI is much further away than my colleagues in Silicon Valley like to say. And the reason is, I think, the transformer architecture. So the way GPT works is they've taken every book, every piece of human writing that they have access to and fed it into a statistical model. And there's only so good that that model and approach can be. And we might need a new architecture. So there's a new type of architecture called diffusion models, which is very early and very promising, but that's very different from the way ChatGPT works.
[18:48]
B
Interesting. That is interesting. Where can people watching this find you and find do not pay and sign up and everything?
[18:53]
A
I'm on Twitter now called X Joshua Browder and DoNotPay.com awesome.
[18:58]
B
Thanks for your time, man. Thank you for having me. Yup, check them out, guys. See you next time.
[19:02]
C
I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm.
[19:07]
B
Them. Thank you.