Melissa Heuer works on the Public Policy team at Sonder, based in New York City. She enjoys spending time thinking about the evolution of cities in relation to how people will live, work and travel in the future. In this edition of “Life at Sonder,” Melissa shares the importance of embracing change, finding a professional mentor, and being a resource to local community members.

Why did you decide to join Sonder?

I just celebrated my second anniversary at Sonder and was recently reflecting back on my time here. Before Sonder, I spent a few years working with various startups in highly regulated spaces. I learned a lot about how a company’s outlook on regulations and compliance can impact its ability to scale and ultimately succeed. When I met Francis, his commitment to compliance and working proactively with regulators to build a sustainable business model was very inspiring, and I was sold! I knew I wanted to give my blood, sweat, and tears to help build this company.

What’s life like on the Public Policy team?

It’s never dull! I’m the lead for our Public Policy work in North America. The Public Policy team works on issues like interpreting and navigating the local regulations in our markets and supporting our city teams in ensuring their operations comply with those regulations.

We work with our city teams to proactively engage local elected officials, regulators, and stakeholder organizations. Our goal is to build open lines of communication and partnerships so that Sonder can be a resource and a productive member of the community, while also ensuring we’re following all state and local regulations, paying taxes, and celebrating every cities’ culture.

We also think about macro policy issues for Sonder as an organization-about the challenges facing cities today like housing availability and affordability, urban planning and resiliency, and how the regulations regarding land use, development, and accommodations may evolve in the future.

The best part of my job is truly the people I work with, and not just on the Public Policy team. Every cross-functional team I’m fortunate enough to collaborate with, and the time I get to spend on the ground with our city teams is 100% my favorite part of working at Sonder.

Can you share more details on how you partner with our city team leadership?

Sonder’s General Managers and their teams play a huge role in our public policy work and are a critical part of our success. Part of what’s unique about our business model is that in every market where we operate, we have a local team on the ground that’s often made up of people who have lived in that city for years. It’s where their lives are-their homes, their kids’ schools, their favorite restaurants, barbershops, and grocery stores. Our city teams care deeply about Sonder’s local operations because they care deeply about their communities.

Public Policy’s role is to provide on the ground support, helping City Leadership identify and engage with various political and regulatory bodies, as well as community-led organizations. In the event that there is pending regulatory change or legislation, we help develop Sonder’s policy perspective and local strategy. Our goal is to help our City Leadership be the most effective local Ambassadors for Sonder that they can be.

How do you balance “this is just the way things are” with finding creative solutions to some of our toughest legislative challenges?

It’s a very fluid balance that takes into consideration a lot of factors, like the political landscape, resources, and priorities at any given moment-all of which can and do change over time. Many regulations in place today never contemplated the types of products, services or ways of doing things that companies have developed in the past 10–20 years. This can make compliance inefficient and difficult for businesses, and make enforcement challenging and complicated for governments.

It’s critical to acknowledge that many regulations are created and implemented out of necessity to establish standards that promote public health and safety. From a business perspective, if there are regulations that impose obstacles to growth and/or efficiency, it’s important to be objective about whether or not those policies can or should change. Sonder is an innovative, agile business. We expend significant resources to understand the regulations of each of our markets and to operate in compliance. It is incredibly validating when regulators recognize our intention, dedication, and transparency. It’s even better when they are open and willing to collaborate on creative solutions that regulate our business in ways that are modern, relevant and still achieve their public policy goals. Of course, this work is rarely straightforward. It is often marred by politics and entrenched interests, which can be grueling. In this line of work, it is so critical to truly believe in your business, which is why I’m so grateful to work at Sonder!

Over the past two years, I’ve learned to truly embrace change. It is a critical strength to develop in order to thrive at most startups and Sonder is no exception.

What excites you most about your role?

The intersection of hospitality and real estate at Sonder has given me the unique opportunity to think critically about the evolution of cities in terms of planning, land use, development, sustainability, preservation, and mobility in relation to how people will live, work, and travel in the future. It is equally daunting as it is thrilling.

What’s your advice for anyone looking to begin a career in Public Policy?

Find someone whose career/accomplishments/expertise you admire and figure out how to work for them and learn from them. I learned so much from my first boss who is a brilliant political strategist turned venture capitalist. I don’t think I’d be where I am today if it hadn’t been for the six years I spent working for him absorbing everything I could.

Originally published at https://blog.sonder.com on April 24, 2020.

It’s become commonplace for tech startups to bypass regulators in the name of innovation. New technologies and product categories seldom fit neatly within older regulatory frameworks, and seeking forgiveness from authorities rather than permission has become standard operating procedure for companies with a “grow at all costs” mindset. But at Sonder we take a different approach, because the cities where we operate are also the ones we call home.

The hospitality sector, which has seen the meteoric rise of homeshare platforms, has presented new challenges for local governments. Global spending on travel is on the rise and consumer preferences are rapidly evolving; visitors crave more authentic and diverse accommodations, like flexible living spaces and more variety in locations that extend beyond the same downtown corridors near the convention center.

Modern travelers want to experience cities like locals, at times creating points of friction with those who actually are. Cities have struggled to find a balance and meet the changing demands of visitors while preserving the quality of life for long-term residents. As Sonder’s public policy manager, I’ve experienced firsthand how difficult and complex these issues are for local officials to grapple with in a way that they believe is balanced and equitable.

This is where Sonder strives to set itself apart. Through countless meetings and conversations with local elected officials, regulators and community organizations in each of the cities where we operate, we’ve listened and learned about the unique issues they face. We’ve taken those lessons to heart and applied them to how we operate and grow our business across every city.

Always Above Board

We work closely with regulators to ensure that Sonder is always compliant with local laws, including zoning and building codes. Sonder also pays all required sales and occupancy taxes. While operating above-board may not be the most efficient or cost-effective growth strategy, it’s a commitment we’ve made as a company to be a responsible neighbor and community member.

Good Neighbors

Sonder only operates in mixed-use and commercial zones. Our spaces are located in busy parts of town — walking distance from restaurants, shops and museums — never residential neighborhoods. And because Sonder controls the entire guest experience end-to-end and professionally manages each space, we’re able to eliminate many of the nuisance issues associated with homeshare platforms that concern local residents. We leverage technology and our local operations teams to ensure trash collection, noise management, and safety concerns are never a problem for neighbors.

Operating Locally and Giving Back

At its core, Sonder is a local business. Every market where we operate has its own General Manager and a team of 20–40 people that live and breathe the city. We lease our spaces directly from local building owners and partner with small businesses to help support our operations, including, housekeeping, storage, moving, architects, real estate professionals, painting, photography, maintenance and other services. A large percentage of the revenue we generate is reinvested locally, contributing to the economic growth and vitality of every city where we operate.

When I explain Sonder’s unique model to local officials they’re often surprised. Alternative accommodations are commonly lumped together in a single category despite being highly diverse and nuanced. Regulators accustomed to the disruptive mindset of Silicon Valley are pleasantly surprised when they are approached proactively by a company looking to launch and grow within their city. But these relationships are everything to Sonder, because we’re so deeply ingrained in the community.

Helping Cities Solve Problems and Meet Future Challenges

Few things excite us more at Sonder than the future of cities, which is why we’re committed to helping them address current and future challenges and pave the way for prosperity and growth.

Sonders are typically located in newly developed or renovated luxury buildings. When these buildings are completed it can take anywhere from 18–24 months to reach their target occupancy rate, restricting developers’ ability to break ground on new residential projects. With a tenant like Sonder leasing a portion of the building as soon as it delivers, developers can quickly stabilize buildings, move onto new projects and hire more staff.

Sonder leases are investments in the local real estate market that allow more housing to be developed. This includes buildings that will create new affordable housing units in order to meet inclusionary housing requirements, which is one of the few ways new affordable housing units are being developed in cities today.

As Sonder grows within cities and our partnerships with local developers strengthen, we’re actually able to incentivize and help finance the redevelopment of underutilized or blighted properties. As an example, Sonder recently helped finance the redevelopment of a building in New Orleans that had been vacant since Hurricane Katrina, allowing the remaining portion of the building to be priced as workforce housing. We’re embarking on similar projects in cities like London, Vancouver, and Chicago where we’re partnering with developers to renovate underutilized buildings and bring flexible accommodations to market. Partnerships like these are at the core of how Sonder will continue to grow — helping cities meet goals for new, affordable housing and bringing new investment to areas that need it the most.

Even just a decade ago it would have been impossible to anticipate how differently people would live, work and travel today. Technology has played a key role in that — creating efficiency, opportunity, flexibility and connectedness that has permanently altered our standards and challenged long-standing industries and mindsets. At Sonder, our goal is to help bridge that change — to thrive through leadership in both innovation and social responsibility.

-Melissa Heuer, Public Policy Manager, Sonder

When innovation meets regulation was originally published in SONDER on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The case of Facebook’s bias*

If you haven’t read about Chairman John Thune’s accusations regarding Facebook’s politically biased selection of the platform’s Trending Topics, its subsequent internal investigation and official report, check out this release from the company.

As expected, the Facebook political bias incident has triggered a larger debate about the existence and role of biases generally in tech and social media companies.

Some believe that tech companies — as products of their human creators, managed by human employees, sourced with content from human users — are inherently biased and accept it.

Others believe that tech companies should provide neutral computational output that is unbiasedly responsive to its human users’ innately biased input, and should actively mitigate the potential bias of its human employees.

Facebook’s response to the allegations was more aligned with the latter school of thought. The company immediately performed a seemingly thorough investigation into its internal curation practices for generating the platform’s Trending Topics, and reported their findings.

The report released by the company stated that the investigation ultimately found no bias, reporting that Republican and Democratic topics were included as trends at “virtually identical rates,” however, they could not rule out the possibility of human bias in the editorial process. Facebook revamped its policies to try and mitigate the potential for human bias.

In my opinion, Facebook did the right thing. Facebook’s stated mission is to provide an open platform to connect, share, and discover through user posted content. The company’s response to the accusations of bias was aligned with its mission.

But to some, including Facebook’s own employees, the incident raised a separate debate: What responsibility and right do tech companies have to use their influence to impact political outcomes that align with what they believe benefits the public good?

The unintended consequences of becoming essential

Tech and social media companies have an unparalleled level of access to an unprecedented number of people. Facebook has an average of 1.09 billion daily active users, while Twitter has 310 million monthly active users. Increasingly, these social media platforms are becoming the top, if not sole, source of news and media for its users. For some, if they didn’t see it on Twitter or Facebook, it didn’t happen. It’s an incredibly powerful and fascinating phenomenon.

Isolating consideration solely on the impact that these platforms have had on American politics and the current election and campaign cycle — the volume of divisive rhetoric, half-truths, and complete lies that have been created, accepted, manipulated, exacerbated, perpetuated and gone unchecked on these platforms is both unbelievable and inevitable at the same time.

So how do we fix it? How do we save ourselves from the seduction of witnessing our own self-destruction? And if we can’t help ourselves, which seems to be the case, then who will?

How do you help those who can’t help themselves?

I’ve recently been reading about Political Corporate Social Responsibility (PCSR) theory and thinking about how it applies to today’s most influential companies, many of whom happen to be in the tech sector.

Academic scholars have not agreed upon a universal definition of PCSR, but to analyze the questions presented above, I’m going to use the definition proposed in an article recently published in the Journal of Management Studies:

“PCSR entails those responsible business activities that turn corporations into political actors, by engaging in public deliberations, collective decisions, and the provision of public goods or the restriction of public bads in cases where public authorities are unable or unwilling to fulfil this role. This includes, but is not limited to, corporate contributions to different areas of governance, such as public health, education, public infrastructure, the enforcement of social and environmental standards along supply chains or the fight against global warming, corruption, discrimination or inequality. These corporate engagements are responsible because they are directed to the effective resolution of public issues in a legitimate manner, often with the (explicit) aim of contributing to society or enhancing social welfare, and are thus not limited to economic motivations.”

So what responsibility and right do tech companies really have to engage in politics and influence “the provision of public goods or the restriction of public bads,” regardless of economic motivations?

I believe that tech companies have a responsibility to use their political power to promote ideas, candidates, and causes that they believe are right and beneficial to the public good, and a responsibility to challenge those which threaten to harm the public good.

I know that tech companies unequivocally have the right to promote, encourage, endorse and support whatever ideas, candidates, and causes they choose whether through their platforms, products, or financial contributions (don’t forget, companies are people, too). Tech companies are under no legal obligation to censor, restrict or filter themselves to oblige the political status quo.

My father once said to me, “perceived power is fleeting, and no one is more aware of that than a politician.” Traditional political powers will continue to work relentlessly to control and censor the immense influence of tech companies. This is particularly true when that influence does not serve the established powers. They will do this by attacking them where they are weak, like accusing them of being guilty of bias, secrecy, manipulation, or self-interest — which is often the very misconduct tech entrepreneurs sought out to challenge in the first place. They should keep that desire to disrupt the “current state of things” and demand better, at the center of everything they do.

But what if this just results in the tech companies continuing the cycle of abuse of power and influence? Well, that’s always a risk. However, there are many other ways to utilize resources and exert political influence to enhance the public good without having to censor, restrict, silence, manipulate, deceive or outspend those who hold beliefs contrary to those of the company.

Here’s a few ideas:

1. Promote solutions and efforts to increase voter turnout, and challenge policies and practices that enable voter suppression. In the 2012 presidential election, barely half of the voting age population turned out to vote.
2. Support voter education, especially efforts to expose lies and unfounded statements and claims made by candidates, PACs and other special interests.
3. Disrupt the echo chambers. A major factor in the success of tech companies, social media platforms in particular, is the fact that the user experience is designed to be hyper-personalized, giving us only what we ask for. This unfortunately has also been a major factor in the abstraction and extreme polarization of American politics and beliefs. Present users with more diverse content. Encourage the opportunity to discover other points of view.
4. Set higher standards and stricter policies for paid content that deter the promotion of false and deceptive statements and claims.
5. Sponsor meaningful debates between candidates. Political debates have become increasingly sensational at the expense of substantive discourse. Tech companies have the power to ask the important questions, demand truthful answers, and to push that content across the platform for the benefit of their hundreds of millions of users.

With great power comes great responsibility

When you take a step back and really consider the monumental importance and value that relatively young companies like Facebook and Twitter have acquired in such a short amount of time, it is truly incredible. The use of their products has become such an essential and habitual part of our lives that they’ve actually matured into verbs: sleeping, breathing, eating, Facebooking, Tweeting, Ubering.

Tech companies touch our lives in more ways than we’re even aware of. Their algorithms are so thorough and their memories so vast that they end up knowing us better than we know ourselves. The content that populates the feeds of these platforms display our collective reflection, currently telling the story of a nation that we have divided.

The circumstances we find ourselves in present a truly rare opportunity for the companies that own the platforms that connect us. It’s the chance to take responsibility for, and exercise the right to promote public good, restrict public bad, and impact change as significant as the creation of their products.