Sonder Labs 

What problem are you solving?

We're working toward the mission of electrifying the last 90% of the world. The electrification megatrend that accelerated over the last decade was mainly focused on the easy problems first. Some of those were quite noticeable, like electric vehicles and renewable energy, but there are so many processes and challenges that still need to be electrified, and they're becoming exponentially more complex.

How did you get into this work? What's your origin story?

My background is electrical engineering. As an electrical engineer you have a few options on the table. Back then I thought batteries were the missing piece for a sustainable energy system. Electricity consumption was static in the West for decades, so it was just a question of how to balance these, and batteries were the dominant technology back then, with hydrogen being the alternative. I spent a bit of time in hydrogen; that didn't really work out. But then I spent a decade in batteries.

I was also working at Northvolt, heading up the R&D department, working on new technologies and being exposed to a lot of innovations, materials, and other startups during that time. So when Northvolt came to an unfortunate end, there was a very short path and transition to continue the development of new technologies with new materials as a separate startup.

What is something you had to learn the hard way?

It's very difficult to start and create something, but it's even more difficult to wind it down. There's so much excitement in creating something new — you have a blank canvas and you need to decide which painting to paint. But then trying to recycle that painting and accepting that the journey's over — that's something everyone who spent time at Northvolt, our prior company, really had to go through. But at the same time, you rise up again and focus on the next journey. It also gives you a realistic understanding of the risk that you take when you start a company and try to grow it.

What assumption do you think this industry has wrong? 

We got used to the fact that electricity consumption remains static, or barely changes. We changed the system by changing the generation, transportation, and storage, but consumption was always static — we created more GDP using the same amount of energy, and Europe especially was very proud of that. Now, with us realizing that we can turn electricity into knowledge thanks to AI factories and other new use cases, that assumption is completely off. Electricity consumption will skyrocket and put even more pressure on our infrastructure than the aging infrastructure from the last centuries already has.

In the next few years the amount of electricity we consume will grow significantly. We don't really have all the options and solutions right now, because we focused a lot on upgrading energy generation. We never focused so much on upgrading the transmission — the infrastructure behind it, all the boring stuff that we now need to spend time on.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Numbers, facts, and data points are not as important as human relationships. You would think that in times of AI and digitalizing everything that would change, but I feel like it became even more important. 

I was always surprised why certain decision makers were mainly characterized by their character traits rather than their skill sets. If you look at who's a good manager and who's not, it usually comes down to the character of that person. The question is: can you play on the strengths, and can you offset the weaknesses of the human nature you bring to the table? 

What does success look like? 

Getting to a real product that is selling, instead of selling ambitions and scale. We need to get to the real products that create customer value and find meaningful offtake, and then grow from there.

But ultimately, this company is focusing on creating maximum impact by being part of this electrification megatrend and a transition to an infrastructure that isn't relying on technology from the last century, but instead is fit and equipped for the challenges we have in the 21st century. We're very comfortable with the achievements of prior generations, and now it's on us to upgrade the system and make sure that for the next generations, everything is ready to go.