About Our Guest:

There is a quiet moment many of us recognize, even if we’ve never named it. It usually arrives at the end of the day, when we open our laptops or phones “just for a minute,” only to be met with a cascade of emails, notifications, forgotten subscriptions, and an underlying sense that our digital lives are somehow running us instead of the other way around. It isn’t dramatic or catastrophic, but it is exhausting — a low-grade fatigue that has quietly become part of modern life.

That feeling was the doorway into this conversation with Chris Zeunstrom, the founder of Yorba — and it’s why I couldn’t wait to share this interview. Chris isn’t shouting about doom, and he isn’t selling fear. Instead, he’s doing something far more interesting and far more hopeful, asking a deceptively simple question that feels almost radical in today’s digital landscape: 

What would the internet look like if it were actually built for people?

How We Got Here: An Overstuffed Digital Garage

One of the things I appreciated most about Chris’s perspective is how grounded it is in compassion. He helped put language to something many of us feel but rarely articulate: over the past two to three decades, the internet has evolved into what is often called “surveillance capitalism.” In plain terms, it means that many of the digital tools we think we are using for free are actually being paid for with our attention, our data, and—too often—our peace of mind.

This wasn’t some grand master plan years in the making. The early internet was born out of optimism and curiosity; engineers and designers weren’t plotting harm, they were building systems that connected people and information in ways never before possible. Over time, however, convenience gave way to accumulation as business interests began to take priority: Platforms scaled, data multiplied, and slowly our inboxes, logins, subscriptions, and profiles turned into a kind of invisible backpack we now carry everywhere, slowly filling with more stuff over time.

When Chris asks, most people guess they have around a hundred online accounts, but the real number is often closer to 250, 500, or even more. I laughed—then I ran my own scan. The number staring back at me was sobering: Nearly a thousand digital doors opened over two decades, many tied to past versions of myself: hobbies I loved briefly, interests that faded, aspirations that made perfect sense at the time.

It was a lot like cleaning out a basement or a garage…if every item in it were capable of broadcasting information about your interests to advertisers.

Digital Minimalism That Actually Removes the Clutter

Chris often references the work of Digital Minimalism, which encourages people to intentionally choose what earns their attention. Yorba builds on that philosophy, but takes it somewhere more practical and, frankly, more honest. Rather than hiding clutter or sweeping it into digital corners like some sites will do, they get to work right away on actually removing it.

Many tools promise digital relief the way a storage unit promises a clean garage. Everything still exists; it’s just out of sight. In a regular garage, that might be fine, but in a digital garage, that does nothing to stop that clutter from continuing to use your data exactly as it was before.

Yorba, on the other hand, helps you donate the old couch, recycle the broken lamp, and finally park your car back where it belongs. That distinction matters—especially because Yorba does the part most of us don’t have the time, patience, or energy to do: following up, chasing confirmations, and making sure deletions truly happen; not just unsubscribing from one email list, but from all fifteen email lists from the same company you didn’t even know you were signing up for.

One detail stood out immediately to me, and it matters more than most people realize: Yorba is a Public Benefit Corporation. That means its mission — reducing digital clutter, protecting privacy, and increasing trust — is embedded into its legal structure from day one. Their lawyers actually advised against this choice, because it makes fundraising harder—investors don’t get to be “number one” as they often love to be—but Chris Zunstrom chose that path anyway.

That decision alone tells you a great deal about the future Yorba is trying to build.

A Hopeful Vision and A Future Worth Choosing

Here’s where my heart truly lifted during our conversation: Chris doesn’t see the internet as broken beyond repair—just unfinished. He envisions a future where we hold our own digital identity, instead of having it scattered across platforms; where trust replaces attention as the currency of the internet, and where companies earn relationships rather than extracting them.

Most compelling to me was his belief that we are standing at a rare moment in time: The old digital “kingdoms”— search, social media, subscription services — are beginning to wobble, and new tools are emerging. For the first time, it may be possible to fight automation, with automation that actually serves people. We don’t need to retreat from technology; we need to re-examine the intent with which we use it.

So what can you do to feel lighter in your online life? Chris Zeunstrom says: 

1. Start with your inbox. If you don’t open something 70 to 80 percent of the time, unsubscribe. Important organizations will still find you when it truly matters. 
2. Pay attention to frequency. Anything sending more than one email a week should earn its place in your life. 
3. Close old accounts. If you haven’t logged in for ten years, let it go — you can always rejoin if it becomes relevant again. 
4. And perhaps most liberating of all: Turn off most notifications and choose when you engage, rather than letting your phone decide for you.

The internet can be a source of wonder, learning, and connection again—not through nostalgia, but through intention, and through tools built and used with care. All we need are people willing to imagine something better…and then do the hard, unglamorous work of building it.

I’ve spent more than a decade trying to find people who can show us right with the world, and what I’m always listening for—especially in innovators—is whether they are carrying a lantern for possibility. Chris Zeunstrom is doing exactly that.

This conversation left me not just informed, but genuinely hopeful—and that, friends, is always my favorite place to land. 🌱

References Mentioned:

📌 1. Yorba — the platform Chris founded
A tool that helps people declutter their digital lives — unsubscribing from unwanted emails, finding and deleting old accounts, and canceling forgotten subscriptions while monitoring data breaches and helping automate cleanup.
🔗 Yorba

📌 2. Yorba Help/FAQ (pricing, features, free version)
This page explains how Yorba works, what the free version includes, and how it helps you take more control of your digital footprint.
🔗 Yorb Help Page

📌 3. Yorba Digital Minimalists resource page
A Yorba page that connects the platform to the idea of digital minimalism, including tracking and deleting accounts, unsubscribing, and canceling subscriptions — basically the practical side of reclaiming your time online.
🔗 Digital Minimalism – Yorba

📌 4. Cal Newport’s Book – Digital Minimalism
The book you and Chris reference as the origin of the idea of digital minimalism — choosing a focused digital life in a noisy world.
🔗 Barnes & Noble
🔗 Amazon

• 00:00 – Intro & Welcome
• 05:21 – Feeling Lighter in a Bloated Digital World
• 10:00 – Surveillance Capitalism and the Modern Internet
• 13:20 – Why Digital Clutter and Privacy Actually Matter
• 16:14 – Cleaning Up 20 Years of Digital Buildup with Yorba
• 33:16 – Personalized Algorithms and the Cost of Convenience
• 41:35 – How Digital Cleanup Actually Works in Practice
• 51:41 – Break
• 54:46 – Reclaiming Perspective in a Noisy Digital World
• 1:03:05 – How Platforms Drift From Their Original Intentions
• 1:12:06 – Power, Incentives, and the Cost of Scale
• 1:22:05 – Building a More Intentional Digital Future