Mechanical Engineer · Builder

Gabriel Brinton

I build things with real craft — aircraft, tools, and the occasional flying club. Mechanical engineer at Joby Aviation, systems thinker, and a lifelong student of movement, water, and the outdoors.

Flying

Piloting is where systems thinking meets open sky — weather, weight and balance, the long climb toward a shared TBM 700 and, someday, a flying club of my own.

Sunset over the coast seen from a small plane's wingtip

Most of my flying is cross-country in a rented Cessna, chasing sunrise departures and the kind of light that makes a forty-minute repositioning leg worth it on its own. The flying club idea started as a spreadsheet — shared ownership math on a TBM 700 — and turned into the project I keep coming back to whenever I want to think about something other than work.

Freediving

Breath-hold diving is the closest I get to silence — a sandy shallows, a curious leopard shark, and nothing else asking for my attention.

No tanks, no bubbles, just a wetsuit and a long exhale — most dives are along the same stretch of coast, in water shallow enough to watch the sand ripple under you. The leopard sharks here are harmless and mostly indifferent, which is exactly the point.

Books & Podcasts

Reading is the other half of building — most of what I make traces back to something I read or listened to first.

Placeholder photograph representing reading and podcasts

Mostly systems thinking, engineering biographies, and the occasional deep philosophy podcast on a long drive. I keep a running list rather than a single favorite — ask me in person.

Food

Cooking is craft at kitchen-table scale — same discipline as any other build, just with better feedback loops.

Placeholder photograph representing food and cooking

Nothing fussy — simple technique, good ingredients, repeated until it's automatic. Freediving and cooking share a rule: respect what you're working with.

Movement

Strength and mobility work that supports everything else — flying, diving, and just staying capable long-term.

Placeholder photograph representing movement and mobility

A mix of strength training and mobility work, most days. The goal isn't aesthetics — it's staying capable of the things above for as long as possible.

Projects

What I'm building right now.

Placeholder photograph representing the Culture Stories writing project

Culture Stories

A growing compendium of essays exploring what mature, well-tested cultural wisdom has to say about the thin, unexamined beliefs a young culture tends to reinvent from scratch.

  • Writing
  • Essays
Visit site →

Get in touch

Have a project, an opportunity, or just want to say hello? Send a message below — no scrapable email address here, just a form that reaches me directly.