[Patreon Exclusive] Sonder: It's official, everything's a scam now :)
Corporate Gossip
Becca Platsky
5.0 • 590 Ratings
🗓️ 15 November 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Listen to the full episode on Patreon. Join today at the Murdoch's Mates level and get FOUR bonus epiosdes every month plus the Corporate Gossip Book Club and group chat!
On Monday morning thousands of travelers were locked out of their Sonder hotel rooms and told: Sorry! Our business isn't businessing anymore :) Executives at both Marriott and Sonder turned their phones on Do Not Disturb as frazzled front line employees tried to manage fuming customers.
At first glance, this just seems like a mismanaged PR crisis, but there's SO much more to the story: A bay area unicorn led by a Forbes 30 under 30 wunderkind, co-opted by VC maniacs speeding down the the 2021 SPAC super highway, bailing right before the crash and leaving unwitting investors holding the bag. INTO THE CORPORATE DUMPSTER!!!
Links:
Gores SPAC's High Redemptions Signal Worsening Sector Sentiment
Sonder Seeks Room in Post-Covid-19 Lodging
San Francisco property-tech company, once worth $1.9B, suddenly goes belly-up
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a preview of a bonus episode available exclusively at patreon.com slash corporate gossip. |
| 0:09.7 | Welcome back to the corporate gossip podcast, Patreon. |
| 0:13.8 | I'm your host, CPA, score, and Becca Platsky. |
| 0:16.7 | I'm here with my brother and my co-host. |
| 0:18.2 | Data Analytics Playboy Adam Platsky. |
| 0:20.5 | And today we are talking about a hot news story that has been evolving throughout the week. |
| 0:29.3 | We're recording this on Friday at 2.30 Eastern. |
| 0:32.9 | I think at this point, all that's going to come out about this story has come out and happy we |
| 0:38.6 | waited until Friday but holy fucking shit this story at first glance was a bunch of travelers |
| 0:48.3 | getting kicked out of their hotel midstay and saying sorry this hotel is bankrupt now you need |
| 0:54.0 | to leave and then being confused |
| 0:55.8 | because they're like, I booked this property through Marriott. What the hell are you talking about? |
| 1:01.9 | At the hotel, they were staying out. They got this notice. I'm showing a picture here that says, |
| 1:05.4 | Dear Guest, Sonder's licensing agreement with Marriott International Incorporated is no longer |
| 1:10.2 | in effect. As a result,porated is no longer in effect. |
| 1:14.6 | As a result, Sondra is no longer able to honor your reservation. |
| 1:20.4 | People were coming back to their hotel rooms and their stuff had been bagged up. |
| 1:25.0 | Like, people packed their luggage while they were gone while they were at breakfast and they came back in Paris or London or New |
| 1:27.5 | York or wherever they were, Philadelphia, and found that somebody had come in the room |
| 1:31.7 | and packed them up and evicted them. |
| 1:34.3 | So there are also people who have reservations coming up who got those canceled. |
| 1:40.3 | This is from New York Times, Joan Lee, 42, 42 whose four nights day after christmas and an apartment |
... |
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