Luis Arévalo Villa
Aerospace engineer · Madrid

Hi, I'm Luis.

Ever since I was a kid I've loved understanding how things work and using them to make life easier. I started with planes and engines; today I do it with artificial intelligence. Here I write about what I learn using AI to work better: what works, what doesn't, and how I do it.

Portrait of Luis Arévalo Villa
About me

It all started with taking things apart

As a kid I was fascinated by machines. Planes, engines, any gadget I could get my hands on and open up to see what was inside. I loved fixing things, and even more than fixing them, understanding why they worked.

Computers were the same. Using them wasn't enough: I wanted to know how they thought and what I could make them do. Early on I picked up an idea that still guides me: technology is worth it when it makes someone's life easier.

That curiosity has taken me from designing electric cars to digitalising fighter jet programmes, and from there to building an AI-native company from scratch. Today artificial intelligence is my new machine to take apart. This site is my workshop notebook: I share what I'm learning, with real examples, for anyone who wants to learn along with me.

  • AI in everyday work
  • Operations and teams
  • Digital transformation
  • Planes and machines
  • Learning by doing

I speak Spanish, English and German. When I'm not at a computer, I'm out mountain biking, swimming, or restoring an old bicycle at home.

My path

From machines to people

  1. 2011 — 2020

    Learning how a plane flies

    Valencia and Munich

    I studied Aerospace Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and then did my master's at the Technical University of Munich. My theses were on rocket propulsion and, later, on electric aircraft propulsion at Rolls-Royce. Still the kid who loved planes, just with a lot more maths.

  2. 2016 — 2018

    My first real machines

    BMW Group · Munich

    At BMW I designed propulsion and battery systems for electric cars. I'd finally gone from opening up gadgets to building them. There I learned that a great part is useless if the process around it doesn't work.

  3. 2021 — 2024

    Making other people's work easier

    MEWS Partners, Panavia and Eurofighter · Munich

    My curiosity shifted from machines to how people work with them. On the Tornado and Eurofighter programmes, alongside NATO, I drove digital tools in an environment where every document matters. We brought digital signatures to NATO's secure network and approvals became 60% faster. We rolled out software that saved 25 engineers 30% of their time. What meant most to me wasn't the numbers, but seeing colleagues spend that time on what really mattered to them.

  4. 2023 — 2025

    Seeing the business from above

    IESE Business School · Executive MBA

    While working at Eurofighter I did the Executive MBA at IESE. I wanted to understand companies as deeply as I understood an engine.

  5. 2025 — 2026

    Building something from scratch with AI

    Laborai · AI-native fintech · Madrid

    I was founding COO of a startup that uses AI to advise people on their taxes and finances. We built a team of 25 and reached 120,000 clients in a year. It was my first big AI workshop: we created internal tools that took repetitive work off the team so they could focus on the cases that needed a person. The same idea as always: using technology to make someone's life easier.

Prefer the formal version, with every date and figure? It's on my LinkedIn.

Blog

What I'm learning with AI

Contact

Let's talk

If something I write helps you, or you want to discuss an idea, message me on LinkedIn. I reply to everyone.