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About Next Pillar Academy

Next Pillar Academy is where business owners learn to put AI to work: a paid online AI community and school, taught by Will Taubenheim, an AI engineer with four NASA awards, with co-host Joe Staiber. Members learn on a live call every week and in a classroom that starts at the beginning. It opened in October 2026.

Last reviewed October 17, 2026

What it is

One membership, everything included.

Learn it with Will and Joe on a live call every week, in a classroom that starts at the beginning, alongside other owners doing the same.

  • A classroom that starts at the beginning (every lesson has a transcript).
  • A live call every week (replays and searchable transcripts).
  • AI News, posted live (and the community feed).
  • Levels and badges (for showing up and helping).
  • Mobile app coming soon (for now, it runs in your browser).

It costs $97 a month or $970 a year, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Cancel any time from your billing page. Questions and answers

Who teaches

The Academy is taught by an AI engineer with four NASA awards and AI work for the U.S. military, with a team that runs businesses, automates operations and researches where AI is going.

Will Taubenheim

Will Taubenheim

Founder · teaches Foundations and hosts the weekly call

Will is an AI engineer who builds systems that have to work under real pressure: in NASA's LunaRecycle Challenge, for the U.S. Navy and Air Force, and for businesses in healthcare, finance, real estate and the trades. He founded Lost Frame Ventures in 2018, works with owners as an engineer and fractional CTO, and co-founded Next Pillar Capital.

That is what he teaches here. Every lesson comes from systems he has built and run, explained the way an owner thinks about it: cost, time, risk and return.

Four NASA awards

Team awards in NASA's LunaRecycle Challenge, won on the Terasynth team with its Lunar Re-Forge System:

  • Phase 1 winner, Digital Twin track (June 2025)
  • Phase 2 Digital Twin Milestone winner (March 2026)
  • Second place overall in the prototype track at the finale (August 2026)
  • People's Choice winner at the finale (August 2026)

NASA's and the University of Alabama's announcements name the team, Terasynth. NASA says the challenge drew more than 1,200 registrations, more than any competition in the 20-year history of its Centennial Challenges. NASA does not endorse Next Pillar Academy.

  • AI for the U.S. military. Missile-defense AI for Navy destroyers, an autonomous wildfire-suppression award from NAWCTSD and SERDP, and an Air Force Global Strike Command down-select.
  • Meta, Google and Epic Games. A Meta Presence Platform Grant and Quest 3 consulting at Meta HQ, an Epic Games MegaGrant, and partner work with Google's Gemini team.
  • Software used by millions. Technical lead on Escape the Backrooms, with more than 130,000 positive Steam reviews. His own VR titles have reached over 2.5 million players.
  • Keynote speaker on AI. Illuminate 2026 at The Ion in Houston, the Greater Brookfield Chamber AI Summit and Entrepreneurs' Organization DC. Author of a 248,000-word State of AI report.
Visit willtaubenheim.com (opens in a new tab)
Joe Staiber

Joe Staiber

Co-host · the business side

Co-founder and CEO of Tampa Entrepreneurs, a non-profit that hosts free events for business owners around Tampa Bay. CEO of Autoscale, which builds AI sales and marketing systems, and founder of the PR agency NewsFeature. Built and sold two e-commerce businesses, and speaks internationally on sales and paid ads.

Brings: Making AI fit the way a business actually sells and grows.

Advisors

  • Nick Maciel

    Nick Maciel

    Advisor · automation and operations

    Mechanical engineer with an MS in Mechatronics from Northeastern. Product work at Apple and on the FDA-cleared ActivSight surgical imaging system, and led the Paradigm Hyperloop team to eighth fastest in the world at SpaceX's competition. Founded Rising Origin, an AI automation agency for home-services and small-business operators.

    Brings: Automating the day-to-day work of running a service business.

  • Darren Lau

    Darren Lau

    Advisor · AI research and policy

    AI and computer-vision researcher. A 2026 Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar for AuRING, a patent-pending AI and augmented-reality surgical-guidance system, and first place at the Invention Convention U.S. Nationals. Worked on AI legislation as a U.S. House legislative intern. Yale Engineering & Science Scholar.

    Brings: Where AI research is heading, and the rules taking shape around it.

  • Georgi Gospodinov, PhD

    Georgi Gospodinov, PhD

    Advisor · AI and data systems

    Mathematician with a PhD from Brandeis who taught applied mathematics before moving into large-scale data systems. At Walmart he worked in data science and is a named inventor on two U.S. patents for real-time fraud and anomaly detection. Co-authored the JSTOR Academic Knowledge Graph, and now builds confidential-computing infrastructure for healthcare AI.

    Brings: Keeping data private, and knowing when to trust what AI does with it.

How it works

From paying to your first call, in four steps.

  1. Join on the web. Pick monthly or yearly and pay on Stripe's page. Your card number never reaches us.
  2. Set up your account. Tell us about your business, agree to the code of conduct, choose what reaches you and add the call to your calendar.
  3. Start here. A short first module: pick your assistant, write a one-page file about your company and hand over one real task.
  4. Come to the call. Bring what you tried. Then keep going through Foundations, in order, at your own pace.

For teams

Buy seats for your staff in one purchase. Each person gets their own account with every course, the weekly call and the replays, and you get one bill. Discounts start at 5 seats, up to 20% off.

  • One price per seat, set by the team's size. Every seat costs the price of the row your total falls in, you included. Add or remove seats later and the price follows.
  • Your own seat is one of them. You do not need a separate membership. Each person you add gets a link to claim their seat once you have paid.
  • You hold the bill. One card, one invoice, and a Cancel button in Settings → Billing. Nobody you add sees your card or the bill.

Buy seats for your team

Who runs it

Next Pillar Academy is run by Next Pillar Capital LLC, which Will Taubenheim co-founded. Next Pillar built the platform it runs on, so the classroom, the calls, AI News and the community are in one place at nextpillaracademy.com.

Write to info@nextpillar.ai or use the contact form. The Terms, the Privacy Policy and the Code of conduct set out how it works.

On the web

Official profiles: LinkedIn, YouTube.