In less than a year since 1776's inception, it has surpassed existing as just a relevant hub of innovation in the District. Arguably, with the leadership of Donna Harris and Evan Burfield, it's become the pioneering entity in re-invigorating and legitimizing D.C. tech.
Towards the end of this past week, 1776 had another huge nugget of news: sometime early next year the co-working space will launch 1776 Ventures, a new for-profit incubator-of-sorts to assist young firms looking to grow in highly regulated governmental industries. That news is great, a brilliant pursuit by the 1776 crew to tackle the startup-government divide. However, 1776's leadership choice for 1776 Ventures – David Zipper – is suspect, to say the least.
You may recognize that name in context with 1776. When the 15th Street co-working space was opened earlier this year, Zipper – who is currently D.C.'s director of business development and strategy – was a key proponent of launching 1776, helping grant it $200,000 to get up-and-running. That makes perfect sense, as a space like 1776 is intended to draw and has drawn countless innovators to the D.C. area with the potential to return investments through great new businesses. In fact, so far 1776 has surpassed any expectations, especially in comparison to other similar spaces that the local government has recently injected capital into.
But now that 1776 is offering employment to the man who was the most-important bureaucratic rallier for opening the space – well that gives the vibe of a "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" situation. Zipper will take over as managing director of 1776 Ventures, and in doing so will use his expertise from the public sector to tailor new companies to the needs and requirements of different regulated industries like health, education and energy, and help them connect with integral players and resources on the other side of the governmental divide. As he told the Washington Business Journal, "Right now, what I'm going to be focused on is developing a curriculum and a program for those entrepreneurs...and figuring out the best way to have a program for them that helps them scale revenue as quickly as possible." And legitimately, he may be the best man qualified for that job.
However, any time there's a lot of money involved, there's a chance for the politics of it all to get a little dirty. Arguably, that $200,000 could've be used or distributed differently, rather than directly to 1776. That's not saying at all that 1776 is a corrupt organization or not deserving of how far it has come. It is, however, saying that now that the man most responsible for giving the startup incubator hundreds of thousands of dollars is slated to become the leader of a for-profit with that organization, things feel very sketchy.
This comes with the alibi that, as Harris explained to the Washington Post, at the time that initial deal was struck, neither Zipper nor Harris imagined that he'd be taking on a role at the startup hub eight months later. Allegedly, Harris approached him about the job less than two weeks ago and on Oct. 21, he recused himself from all city matters related to 1776 in a letter to deputy mayor Victor Hoskins. But, again, when there's money on the line, that argument becomes a lot less believable, and things look a lot more quid pro quo, toeing the line of shoddy ethics. Perhaps the best policy on this situation is to let naiveté dictate your opinion, as 1776 deserves the benefit of the doubt since revolutionizing innovation in downtown D.C. However, the D.C. tech scene is smarter than that, and this likely isn't going to go unnoticed.
