# Manil Lakabi

> Manil Lakabi is the San Francisco-based CEO and founder of x1, a Y Combinator Fall 2024 company helping people build native iPhone apps. His background includes generative-AI operations at Scale AI, Meta’s FRL team, and cofounding Foundry with Pranav Raja. He coauthored SDRBench, a benchmark for browser agents, and writes about enabling one-person app companies.

- **Role:** CEO & Founder at x1
- **Organizations:** x1, Foundry, Scale AI, Meta, Slash, Buzzer, Y Combinator, On Deck
- **Education:** Bachelor’s degree, Economics (Math), Santa Clara University, Y Combinator
- **Known for:** Founder of x1, listed as an active Y Combinator Fall 2024 company., Cofounder of Foundry with Pranav Raja., Coauthor of SDRBench, a suite of 50 deterministic browser-agent tasks.

## Career timeline

- **2018** — Listed a machine-learning project predicting stock-market movement from news headlines.
- **2020–2022** — Product manager at Meta and founder of Buzzer, according to the professional-history capture at Fundraising Fox.
- **2021** — Received the On Deck Founders Fellowship (ODF 11).
- **2022–2023** — Product manager at Slash, according to the professional-history capture at Fundraising Fox.
- **2023–2024** — Strategic Projects Lead at Scale AI, according to the professional-history capture at Fundraising Fox.
- **2024** — Cofounded Foundry with Pranav Raja; participated in Y Combinator Fall 2024. The current YC company profile lists x1 as founded in 2024.
- **2025** — Coauthored SDRBench, dated September 22, 2025.
- **2026** — Published x1 essays about one-person app companies and a five-stage app development methodology.

## Achievements

- Founder of x1, listed as an active Y Combinator Fall 2024 company.
- Cofounder of Foundry with Pranav Raja.
- Coauthor of SDRBench, a suite of 50 deterministic browser-agent tasks.
- Led large-scale language-data projects at Scale AI, as described by Y Combinator.

## Latest updates

- **2026-05** — Published “Enabling the era of the One-Person Unicorn” on May 13.
- **2026-06** — Published “X1 Product Methodology: 5 Stages for AI Apps in 2026” on June 11.

## Links

- Website: https://x1.new/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manillakabi
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/lakabimanil_

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/manil-lakabi
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-11