"Pixels Opinions are the humble bricks with which one can build cathedrals overly long blog posts about engineering principles"
A man who has spent 20+ years building technology companies but still gets existential anxiety when asked "what do you do?" at the notary. Has founded three companies, led engineering at one of Spain's most successful startups, raised $70M+ in funding... but please, call him a "builder." Not a programmer (that hurts), not an entrepreneur (too pretentious), not a manager (God forbid). Just a humble builder who happens to own a Lotus Elise and wake up at 6AM on weekends to code on microcontrollers. You know, as one does.
(or: How to go from thinking in pesetas to signing checks in dollars — sorry, euros)
Comes from a "very poor family" in a small Spanish village. Not "begging-in-the-street poor" but "having-a-shit-time poor" (his exact words: "de pasarlas putas"). Bought his first computer at 21. Now runs a company that burns through millions in venture capital annually. Still thinks in pesetas. "Imagine changing Twitter's name" — also refuses to call it X.
Before making tough business decisions, Javi looks at the photo of his grandparents on his nightstand and asks himself if they would scold him. This is his management framework. Not McKinsey, not OKRs, not Lean Six Sigma. A nightstand photo of his deceased grandparents. The man who raised $70M from Silicon Valley VCs makes decisions by imagining his abuela's disapproval.
Actively hides the fact that he has a company from anyone outside the startup world. His exact words: "I don't tell anyone outside the startup environment what I do... I avoid talking about it because I don't feel like explaining anything." A CEO with $70M in funding who operates in witness protection.
Then, in the same blog post, he publicly shares his company's funding numbers, his salary philosophy, and his deepest fears about failure. To the entire internet. The man is a privacy paradox wrapped in a Substack newsletter.
While arguing that Spain's startup ecosystem struggles because founders can't communicate well, he wrote: "Imagine talking to someone with obvious communication problems with other human beings telling you they've raised $70M." He was describing... himself. He described himself. In his own blog. And published it.
(or: How To Accidentally Build Companies While Trying To Stay A Programmer)
Started as a "digitalizador" - literally copying data from paper to a database. Found this so soul-crushingly boring that he automated himself out of the job. This pattern of "I'll automate it rather than do it" would define his entire career and, honestly, explains a lot.
Built GPS software for farmers. Profitable from almost month one. Kept it running for 12 years. Got featured in Bloomberg. The man literally helped Spanish farmers navigate their fields and somehow this is the project he's most emotionally humble about. Sold it and moved on. modest exit
CTO of one of Spain's best-known startups. Raised $30M+. Led the tech team. Made maps cool before everyone had a "geospatial strategy." Then left, presumably because being CTO wasn't programmer-y enough. identity crisis #1
Co-founded a real-time data analytics company. Raised ~$70M from American and European investors. Built a product that processes data at absurd speeds. Became CEO in 2025 because apparently co-founding and raising $70M wasn't stressful enough. Still writes blog posts about how he's "not really an entrepreneur" and just "ended up here." Sir, you are the chief executive officer of the company you founded. ~$70M raised now CEO deeper denial
Wakes up at 6AM on Saturdays to code on an ESP32 microcontroller before his family wakes up. Building his own lap timer for track days. Compares himself to a chef cooking at home. This is a man at peace. 6AM Saturday alarm
(With the conviction of someone who has thought about them for way too long)
Owns a Lotus Elise, a car designed in the 90s with one premise: be as light as possible. Takes it to the racetrack. Does his own oil changes because the nearest dealer is 800km away. Wrote a 1500-word philosophical essay connecting car maintenance to software engineering principles.
Also has "some other weekend cars" (plural) and once said: "If it were up to me I'd have a parking garage with a house attached to it."
Recently drove a 475hp car and admitted struggling with the first three corners. The man builds real-time data platforms handling millions of events per second but couldn't handle the horsepower difference.
WARNING: Will compare your startup to a Lotus Elise at some point
(2000 words of constructive rage, written from inside the burning building)
Javi wrote an entire essay about why Spain is terrible for startups. The key insight: why would anyone risk everything on a startup when you can work at a bank, earn a "very decent salary," get a mortgage at 0%, a 150% annual bonus, daycare, gym, and retire at 55?
His analysis of Spain's startup scene boils down to: risk is a dirty word, the entrepreneur is the enemy, and "we were born to come in second." He measures his political influence by the fact that "at least one congressman follows me on Twitter." He blames the EU bottle cap regulation for everything.
He spent his entire 20s selling GPS software to farmers in small towns on weekends. Now he tells people Spain needs more risk-takers. From inside the country he refuses to leave. While hiding what he does from non-startup people. While thinking in a currency that was retired in 2002.
Because his brain never got the euro update
(A guide for people who actually build things, not LinkedIn shamans)
Uses exactly two tools: Cursor and a command-line tool called llm. Refuses to learn more. Has been coding for 20 years and his tech stack for AI is literally cat file | llm "do the thing". Peak minimalism.
Created a Slack bot with his own personality. It was "bastante cabroncete" (quite a little bastard). Had to shut it down. Also made it "passive-aggressive" and had to remove that too because "LLMs are especially good at hitting where it hurts."
Regularly asks LLMs to criticize his writing in a "harsh, passive-aggressive but humorous" way. Warns others: "If you have thin skin, don't do it. No human without social problems will be this honest."
Once generated blog posts using LLMs and passed them to colleagues as his own writing. Only one person noticed. He told this story publicly, in his own Substack, seemingly proud. Absolute menace.
(Because being CEO, car enthusiast, weekend coder, and Substack philosopher wasn't enough hobbies)
Added "run a 10K in under 50 minutes" to his life TODO list (yes, he has a life TODO list, because of course he does). Then, because he's incapable of doing anything at a normal level of intensity, he quoted Kipchoge's speech about embracing pain and pushed through to finish in under 48 minutes. Achievement unlocked at age 43.
Flew Ryanair to Treviso (the budget way to get to Venice, but he went to Padua instead because he's not a tourist, he's a traveler). Ended up in a cathedral in Verona where musicians were rehearsing for a concert.
Watched the director stop, give notes, repeat sections, adjust volumes. Claims he enjoyed that 30-minute rehearsal more than any finished concert he's ever attended in his life.
The takeaway? He prefers seeing how things are made over the finished product. He'd rather watch a Topuria fight breakdown than the actual fight. He'd rather listen to the Chernobyl podcast about production decisions than watch the show. He'd rather read post-mortems than launch announcements.
He literally said he would have paid double for the rehearsal. This man is the human embodiment of "I read the documentation before using the product."
Opening line of the essay: "Ryanair has two wonderful things: despite humiliating people with random rules, they still applaud on landing." Then he explained tablecloths to millennials. Then he explained Romeo & Juliet to Gen Z. The man is a bridge between all generations and also a condescending uncle at dinner. Simultaneously.
Measuring the gap between what Javi says and what Javi does:
Says "I'm not an entrepreneur" • Is literally CEO
Criticizes LinkedIn thought leaders • Writes 3000-word Substack essays
Advocates remote work limitations • Codes alone at 6AM on weekends
Warns about AI hype • Uses 4 different LLMs daily, built a roast-bot
Believes in simplicity • Has a Lotus, "other weekend cars" (plural), and a track addiction
Calls AI content "internet shit, now written by LLMs" • Generates blog posts with AI, tests them on colleagues
Wrote an essay praising "finished" things • Has a blog post that ends mid-sentence
Hides his company from non-startup people • Publishes funding numbers on his public Substack
Links to Claude's announcement saying "machines are better than me" • This page was made by Claude
In his 2025 annual reflections, Javi revealed his retirement dream: starting "Santana Engineering" — a boutique software/data workshop inspired by a Japanese artisan car shop documentary.
He immediately followed this up with: "I don't really like my last name, to be honest."
So the dream is: a Japanese-inspired artisan software workshop, named after a surname he doesn't like, modeled after a car shop he saw in a YouTube documentary, announced in a newsletter that also discusses Ryanair and Daniel Kahneman's assisted death letter.
Peak Javi. We wouldn't have it any other way.
Every year Javi publishes "Recortes" (cuts/clippings) — his annual compilation of things that left a mark on him. His employees panic every time because "recortes" also means "layoffs" in Spanish. He acknowledges this, says "yes, I did cut quite a few things this year", and then proceeds to share sentimental quotes about pain and perseverance for 3000 words. The cognitive whiplash is part of the brand.
Keeps a diary for his daughter so she'll know "exactly what the hell was going through my head." Admits he doesn't know how to reliably deliver it to her in the future. The man who builds real-time data infrastructure capable of processing millions of events per second cannot figure out how to send a file to his daughter. priorities
His daughter figured out that eating less lunch = leaving school earlier. He recognized this as a case study in how OKRs produce unintended consequences. Most dads would just say "eat your lunch." This one wrote a data engineering lesson about it.
Wakes at 6AM on weekends. Makes a large coffee. Codes on an ESP32 trying to compress data in a few kilobytes of RAM. Building a DIY lap timer for his track car. Says "that's not important" about the project he wakes up at 6AM for.
His actual about page starts with: "This is me looking at the ceiling pretending I'm thinking to say something really smart." It's genuinely the most self-aware thing on the internet and also somehow still takes itself seriously three paragraphs later.
Refers to LinkedIn thought leaders as "the same middle managers who don't know which way is up, who have found a new way to get noticed." Then goes on to write a 3000-word Substack post. The cognitive dissonance has its own gravitational field.
In his "Programador" essay, Javi linked directly to Anthropic's Claude announcement while lamenting that "machines are better than you at what you were supposed to be good at." This webpage you're reading was made entirely by Claude. He commissioned the very machine he mourns to build his parody homepage. If irony were a programming language, Javi would be its principal maintainer.
Every December, Javi sends a newsletter titled "Recortes" (clippings/cuts). Every December, his Tinybird employees have a micro heart attack because "recortes" also means "layoffs." He knows this. He opens the essay by acknowledging it. He still uses the title. Every year. This is what they call "CEO energy."
In a single essay he explained what tablecloths are ("for millennials: tablecloths are like some things you put on top of tables, they used to be made of fabric"), then explained Romeo & Juliet ("for millennials"), then referenced IRC ("for Gen Z, a kind of Slack/Discord but well-made"). He is the Rosetta Stone of generational shade.
Went to a startup event. Didn't understand most of the questions. Gave a "shit answer" (his words) to the best question about talent. Tried to find the woman who asked it to apologize. Couldn't find her. Decided to write a blog post to redeem himself. The blog post literally ends mid-sentence. The man who wrote "Terminado y cerrado" (Finished and closed) — an entire philosophical essay about the beauty of completing things — published a blog post that cuts off in the middle of a thought. The sentence "En la startup buscas" ("In a startup you look for") just... stops. Forever. irony level: fatal
While using an LLM to analyze his team's writing style, he forgot to add the word "writing" to the prompt and accidentally generated psychological profiles of his entire team instead. His reaction? "I don't know if it's a horoscope effect but it's very good at reading people." The CEO who accidentally psychoanalyzed his employees and then casually evaluated the results for accuracy. HR would like a word.
To mock the AI pivot trend, he invented a fake company: "WhatEverFy, the new Uber for selling colored cauliflower that you can choose, you ride the wave and now you're WhatEverFy.ai and the cauliflowers are the same but created with your own proprietary AI model." The fact that this is indistinguishable from real Y Combinator pitches is the whole point.
In his Recortes 2025, he shared a photo of himself and noted: "The photo has nothing special, except that I'm laughing, which is unusual." A CEO who considers a photo of himself smiling to be noteworthy. The same man who built a comedy bot that was so effective at roasting people he had to shut it down. He creates humor; he does not experience it. comedic output only
Opens his Recortes 2025 with: "This year has been extreme, quite radical personally and professionally, but don't worry, I won't bore you with my problems." He then proceeds to write 3000 words about his problems. This is the literary equivalent of "I don't want to be dramatic, BUT" — the verbal contract he breaks with himself annually, in public, with formatting.