Caleb Max
President & CEO of NAIA
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Caleb Max is the President & CEO of the National Artificial Intelligence Association (NAIA), which lobbies for start-ups and large companies looking to invest in AI.
NAIA was started in January 2025 when Caleb and a few of his colleagues recognized a growing concern among AI start-ups over potential regulations.
‼️ Today, NAIA has hundreds of members from a wide range of companies – big and small.
Caleb's experience in D.C. stretches long before the founding of NAIA. Growing up, he spent his childhood in the halls of the Capitol with his grandfather, former Congressman Frank Wolf.
Caleb's relationship with his grandfather was incredibly formative, and inspired his work ethic, entrepreneurial spirit, and eventual run for Congress.
Get to know more about Caleb...
🏠 Hometown: Northern Virginia
🎓 College: George Mason University
🔗 CNCT with Caleb about... Starting a business!
↪️ Despite his young age, Caleb has already started successful businesses, built projects from the ground up, and learned valuable lessons from the projects that didn't go as planned.
Caleb's Various Ventures
As someone who describes himself as not being scared of risk, Caleb has tried just about everything!
In high school, he started a landscaping company which, at first, was nothing out of the ordinary. By the time he sold the business at 23, it had about 25 full-time employees which mowed about 300 lawns across Loundon County (which has a lot of farms!).
🐓 While his landscaping business was (rapidly) growing, he also purchased a farm to store the mowers. The farm allowed him to raise cattle, have chickens and, well, continue to grow his business.
🥪 Caleb branched out his business ventures while he was working as an intern on the Hill. He purchased a local deli in February 2020 (yikes... bad timing) which had a lot working against it (a lot meaning a global pandemic).
Although not one of his major successes, Caleb was able to learn firsthand the effect of government regulations on small businesses which would come in handy at NAIA.
🗳️ One more thing: Caleb also ran for Congress! After a redistricting in Virginia, a seat opened up. The election was a very short turnaround and it wasn't until two months before the primary that he knew how the election would even take place.
Caleb learned and had a lot of fun on his campaign, even if he did get "absolutely obliterated" (his words). Successes or... not... there's always fun to be had and lessons to be learned!