Maryland Is Ranked 36th in America. I'm Still Here. Here's Why.

CNBC just ranked Maryland 36th in the country for business. The economy sub-score is 49th out of 50. Second worst in America. GDP growth sitting at 1.5%. Unemployment at 4.4%. A top corporate tax rate of 8.25% and a gas tax of 65 cents per gallon.

I live here. I run multiple companies here. I hire here. I build from a horse farm south of Annapolis, Maryland.

Every founder I know wants to ask the same question: why haven't you left for Austin? For Miami? For wherever the technocrat herd is grazing this year?

Here is the answer.

The Numbers Are Real. So Is the Opportunity.

Let me be clear: I am not going to pretend Maryland is thriving. The Maryland Chamber of Commerce noted that this is not a one-bad-year story. Maryland has slipped every single year since 2023, from 22nd to 31st to 32nd to 36th. Only Oregon has fallen further in that same window. That is a direction, not a stumble.

The fiscal picture is just as ugly. Governor Hogan left office with a $5.5 billion reserve and a state that had eliminated a $5.1 billion structural deficit over eight years. No tax increases. Surpluses in seven of eight fiscal years. The Moore administration inherited that position, described it as a "fortunate financial position," and has run deficits every year since, closing a $3.3 billion gap in FY2026 through tax hikes, cuts, and fund transfers.

So yes. The numbers are bad. I am not here to argue otherwise.

I am here to argue that bad numbers create opportunity for people who are paying attention.

The Talent Is Underpriced

Here is what the CNBC ranking does not tell you.

Maryland is the second most educated state in America, according to WalletHub's 2025 rankings. The state has the highest concentration of doctoral scientists and engineers in the country, excluding Washington D.C. There are 120,000 IT workers and 46,000 life sciences workers in this state. Before the federal workforce reductions of 2025, Maryland had over 160,000 civilian federal jobs physically located here, with average annual earnings of $131,425.

That workforce is now in motion. Maryland lost nearly 25,000 federal jobs in 2025, the largest loss of any state in the nation. Those are cleared, credentialed, highly educated professionals who are suddenly available. Many of them do not want to relocate. They want to stay close to their families, their communities, their lives.

If you are building anything in govtech, defense tech, health tech, or AI infrastructure, that talent pool is sitting right here. And right now, you can hire it at a discount because everyone else is running away from the headline.

That is the unlock.

Federal Adjacency Is a Moat

I build AI systems. A significant portion of the work I do touches federal agencies, defense contractors, and the intelligence community. You cannot build that business from Austin without a plane ticket. You cannot build it from Miami without a clearance problem and a timezone problem and a relationship problem.

Annapolis is 30 minutes from Fort Meade. 45 minutes from the Pentagon. An hour from NIH. The proximity to the federal buyer is not a soft advantage. It is a structural moat that no amount of Texas tax incentives can replicate.

The contracts are here. The decision-makers are here. The partners are here. The ecosystem that makes govtech and federal AI work is geographically anchored to this region in ways that do not show up in a CNBC competitiveness score.

The Political Problem Is Real and It Is Self-Inflicted

Now for the part nobody wants to say out loud.

Maryland keeps electing the same people and expecting different results. Baltimore's mayoral history is a case study in exactly this. Sheila Dixon resigned after pleading guilty to misappropriating gift cards meant for poor residents. Catherine Pugh resigned amid a book deal scandal that triggered federal raids on her home. The city has cycled through scandal after scandal, and voters have returned to the same party, the same machine, the same broken incentive structure, every single cycle.

This is not a Republican versus Democrat argument. This is an argument about outcomes.

Larry Hogan, a Republican in a deep blue state, delivered eight years of fiscal discipline, bipartisan governance, and measurable economic improvement. He cut nearly 850 regulations, reduced or eliminated 250 fees, and delivered close to $1.3 billion in tax, toll, and fee relief. Maryland was climbing the CNBC rankings under his watch. Now it is in freefall.

The issue is that Maryland voters have been trained to vote against something rather than for something. Vote against Republicans. Vote against Trump. Vote against whoever the media has decided is the villain this cycle. And in doing so, they keep electing people who are better at fundraising than governing, better at messaging than managing, and better at pointing fingers than building anything.

Wes Moore is a compelling person. He is a great speaker. He is running for something bigger than Maryland, and everyone in Annapolis knows it. While he is building a national profile, the state is running deficits, watching businesses leave, and watching its CNBC ranking crater four years in a row.

The next election cycle is 12 to 18 months out. Marylanders will have a choice. They can vote the party color again, or they can vote for outcomes. They can ask who has actually built something, balanced something, delivered something measurable. Business people in seats. Operators, not orators.

I am not telling you who to vote for. I am telling you that the current approach is visibly, measurably failing, and the data is not ambiguous.

Why I Stay

I stay because the talent is here. The federal adjacency is here. The cost of building, relative to the talent density, is still favorable compared to San Francisco or New York. My family is here. My community is here. The horses are here.

And honestly? I stay because someone has to.

The contrarian play in a struggling state is to build in the gap. When everyone flees, the talent gets cheaper, the real estate gets cheaper, the competition thins out, and the people who stayed get first access to everything the people who left were too impatient to wait for.

I am not betting against Maryland. I am betting that Maryland is going to have to get serious, and when it does, I will already be here with the relationships, the reputation, and the infrastructure.

The Baltimore Sun's own commentary this week called it a "desperate state." Four in five Marylanders report being worried about money. The anxiety is real.

But anxiety is not destiny. Leadership is a choice. Governance is a choice. Who you put in office is a choice.

Make a different one.

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If you are building in Maryland, working in govtech or federal AI, or just trying to figure out whether to stay or go, I want to hear from you. Find me at virgent.ai or drop a comment. The people who are still here are worth knowing.