Can Washington Be Automated?

In early 2016, the Office of Personnel Management, the human resources agency for federal employees, began researching software that would track the social media accounts of security clearance applicants. The agency was reportedly looking to contract with companies that could do searches with almost no need for human input and had a "robust identity-matching algorithm" to cut down on mixups. The company's chief competitor is a 10-minute walk from FiscalNote's office, just south of Dupont Circle. Quorum was founded in 2014 by Alex Wirth and Jonathan Marks while they were still Harvard undergrads. Now employing up to 46 people, stuffed into a buzzing glass-partitioned office space marked by caramel-colored wide-board wood floors, the office has a map of the D.C. Metro system embedded in tile on the wall of the open kitchen space.