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
"Writer from Argentina. Occasionally gets punched in the face."
— To My Best Friend with the Palindrome Name
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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 · Jive Communications
Dublin, Ireland
2019 – 2020 · Account Executive, UK & Ireland
LogMeIn · GoTo suite
San Francisco Bay Area
2020 – present
Pulse (acq. Gartner) · Box · Carta · Salesforce
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 · Works in Progress
Longer Works in Progress
Extended works of memoir and narrative nonfiction — including excerpts from Moving Targets, a thesis written at the University of Chicago.
Tech Projects
01
Book Club Librarian
An AI librarian named Chad — opinionated, well-read, oat milk latte in hand. Tell him what you've read, and he'll tell you what to read next. Literary fiction only. No airport thrillers.
02
FundingLens
Know who's backing your prospects before you reach out. Search 10,000+ companies and surface their VC and PE backers in real time — built for sales and BD teams who need an edge.
03
Slush
A matching platform for writers and literary agents — like a dating app for manuscripts. Build a profile, browse agents actively seeking your kind of work, and start the conversation when there's a match.
04
PE Portco
Type any PE firm. Get their entire portfolio — logos, sectors, websites, LinkedIn — in under a minute. Built for sales teams who prospect PE-backed companies and don't have time for PitchBook.
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.
06
Peninsula FC Hub
The official home of Peninsula FC — a semi-pro soccer club in the SF Bay Area — with live standings, match results, and team stats.
07
Your Saturday Morning BJ
A podcast and running conversation between two old friends — Bret & Juan. Life, travel, work, Batman, the quest for FatFire, and anything else that comes up. Never actually recorded on a Saturday morning.
08
Tadpole AI
Deploys autonomous agents that simulate advanced persistent threats — continuously probing your attack surface the way nation-state actors actually operate.
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.