Essay
7 Lessons I Learned From Getting Punched In The Face
A combat-sports essay on humility, discipline, fear, and the strange clarity that arrives when theory meets consequence.
San Francisco, CA · Writer · Technologist · Athlete
Juan Pablo
Gargiulo
Narrative nonfiction & fiction Software & technology Combat sports & the beautiful game
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About
Born in Argentina.
Shaped by everywhere
since.
I came to the U.S. at five — Plymouth, then Texas — studied politics at UT Austin and creative writing at the University of Chicago, taught English in Seville, sold enterprise software in Utah and Dublin, and eventually landed in San Francisco, where I've been since 2020.
That path left me fluent in two languages, comfortable in many rooms, and instinctively drawn to the space where different worlds meet. I've spent my career in tech — selling complex B2B solutions across North America, LATAM, and EMEA — with a writer's eye for what actually matters to people.
I build software on the side, train martial arts before work, and still believe a well-constructed sentence can do things a dashboard never will.
A life in coordinates
San Juan, Argentina
Born · 1990 – 1995
Plymouth, Massachusetts
1995 – 2000 · ages 5–10
Allen, Texas
2000 – 2009 · ages 10–18
Austin, Texas
2009 – 2015 · BA, Government · UT Austin
Chicago, Illinois
2015 – 2016 · MA, Creative Writing · University of Chicago
Seville, Spain
2016 – 2018 · English teacher · Deutsche Schule
Provo, Utah
2018 – 2019 · Account Executive · LogMeIn
Dublin, Ireland
2019 – 2020 · UK & Ireland markets · LogMeIn
San Francisco Bay Area
2020 – present · home
2
Native languages · English & Spanish
4
Markets sold across · NA, LATAM, UK, Ireland
BA + MA
Government · UT Austin | Creative Writing · UChicago
Writing
Literary Essay
Life Is Too Short To Read Ayn Rand
A sharp, personal argument about taste, time, ideology, and the books we choose not to carry with us.
Craft
10 Things You’ll Learn From Writing Every Day
A practical meditation on consistency, attention, voice, and the unromantic work behind becoming a writer.
Longform
Longer Works in Progress
A set of larger fiction and nonfiction projects currently in development — built around memory, movement, ambition, and belonging.
Tech Projects
01
Book Club Librarian
A full-stack web app for reading groups — with AI-powered discussion tools, book tracking, and member features. Built for people who take reading seriously.
02
FundingLens
A tool for surfacing and analyzing funding data — built to give investors and operators clearer signal in noisy markets.
03
Slush
A platform for managing and evaluating early-stage submissions — bringing structure to the famously chaotic world of deal flow and manuscript review.
04
PE Portco
A portfolio company management tool for private equity — centralizing data, reporting, and communication across a firm's holdings.
05
Chad AI
A Cognitive Hyperscale Agentic Datapipeline — autonomous AI agents that ingest, validate, transform, and deliver data across your entire infrastructure at scale, with zero manual intervention.
Athletics
The body
as practice.
Competition taught me that showing up matters more than being ready. Soccer, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, boxing — each discipline in its own way demands presence, pattern recognition, and the willingness to be a beginner again.
I bring that same ethos to work: consistency over inspiration, process over outcome. Whether it's a long training block or a large codebase, I've learned to trust the incremental.
SoccerThe beautiful game
BJJBrazilian jiu-jitsu
BoxingSweet science
Contact
Let's make
something worth reading.
Open to interesting projects, collaborations, and the right full-time opportunities in tech.