From Uruguay to Silicon Valley CTO: Why I'm Teaching What Others Gatekeep

When I tell people I'm from Uruguay, the first question is usually "Where is that?" The second is "How did you end up as a CTO in Silicon Valley?"

The honest answer? I bet on the right technologies at the right moments. And I'm done watching people struggle with the same gatekept knowledge that could transform their careers.

The Uruguay Problem

I started my career in Montevideo. A city of 1.8 million people, 8,000 km from Silicon Valley. Every career advice article said the same thing: move to a tech hub, get into the right networks, attend the right conferences.

I couldn't afford any of that.

So I did the only thing I could: I got really good at technologies nobody else wanted to touch yet.

The React Native Bet

In 2016, I joined Beta Labs and went all-in on React Native. The documentation was incomplete. The community was skeptical. Every "senior" developer I knew said the same thing: "Wait for it to stabilize."

I didn't wait.

I spent nights debugging crashes that had no Stack Overflow answers. I shipped apps that crashed more than they worked—at first. We designed microservices architectures on Docker Swarm and AWS Lambda before it was standard practice.

That bet led to Top Nine, an app that hit #1 on the US App Store three years in a row. Built with React Native and Node.js. From Uruguay.

The lesson I learned: timing beats perfection. The developers who waited for React Native to "stabilize" missed the window entirely. By the time they were ready, the opportunity had moved on.

From Developer to CTO

That single bet opened doors I didn't know existed. I went from full-stack developer to Tech Lead at Lithium, where I re-architected entire products using JavaScript across the stack—reducing development effort by 30%.

Then came LastRev, where over 5 years I went from engineer to Dev Lead to Director of Product Engineering, building a centralized data layer architecture that now powers over 10 large enterprise websites. I created CLI tools that deploy production-ready sites in minutes instead of weeks.

In 2023, I co-founded AnswerAI as CTO. Now we ship AI agents to production daily.

Along the way, I spent three years as a professor at Universidad ORT—teaching React, React Native, GraphQL, and software architecture. I saw firsthand how the same patterns that worked for me were being gatekept by the tech establishment. The knowledge that could 10x someone's career was locked behind expensive bootcamps, exclusive networks, and vague "just grind harder" advice.

Why I'm Building This

I believe three things:

1. Location doesn't limit you anymore.

The tools available today—Claude Code, Cursor, AI agents—are the new React Native moment. The developers who master them now will have opportunities the "wait and see" crowd will never get.

2. Real code beats theory.

I'm not here to sell you courses full of pseudocode and hypothetical scenarios. Everything I teach comes from production. Real apps. Real users. Real revenue.

When I tell you a pattern works, I mean I've shipped it. When I tell you something failed, I mean I lost money learning that lesson so you don't have to.

3. The path from junior to CTO is teachable.

Not through credentials or connections. Through the right skills, applied at the right time, with the right systems.

I went from a junior developer in Uruguay to a Silicon Valley CTO. Not because I was the smartest developer in the room—I wasn't. But because I learned how to identify leverage points and move fast when others hesitated.

What You'll Find Here

This is where I share what actually works:

For Developers (0 to Senior): Complete paths from your first feature to enterprise architecture. Production patterns, not tutorial hell. The same systems I use to ship code at AnswerAI, adapted for wherever you are in your journey.

For Builders: AI tool reviews that cut through the hype. I test everything myself—if it doesn't work in production, I'll tell you. No affiliate deals, no sponsored content, just what actually builds businesses.

For Indie Hackers and Founders: Playbooks from real products with real metrics. How to go from idea to revenue using AI, without the months of wrong turns I took.

The New React Native Moment

Here's what I see clearly: Claude Code and AI-assisted development are where React Native was in 2016. Messy, powerful, and completely misunderstood by most developers.

The ones who master these tools now will have the same unfair advantage I had. The ones who wait for things to "stabilize" will wonder why they got left behind.

I spent $800 in a single day learning how Claude's subagents work in production. I've shipped AI features that compressed weeks of work into hours. I've also failed spectacularly and lost money on approaches that seemed promising but didn't work.

All of that goes here. The wins, the failures, the actual code.

My Promise

No BS. No gatekeeping. No success theater.

When I ship something that works, you'll get the code. When I try something that fails, you'll get the post-mortem. When I discover a pattern that changes how I work, you'll get the framework.

I'm not here to build an audience. I'm here to give developers—especially those who think geography or credentials are holding them back—the same leverage that took me from Uruguay to Silicon Valley.

The tools have never been more accessible. The knowledge shouldn't be gatekept.

Let's ship something.

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