OpenClaw Creator: Why 80% Of Apps Will Disappear

Today I'm sitting down with Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, the open- source personal AI agent that has completely taken over the internet.

The GitHub repo exploded to over 160,000 stars practically overnight. The

community has built countless projects like Maltbook where bots talk among themselves. And now the bots are even

themselves. And now the bots are even renting humans to do tasks in the real world. In our conversation, we discuss

world. In our conversation, we discuss his aha moment, his contrarian development philosophies, and what this means for builders in 2026. Let's dive

in.

>> So, good to see you, man.

>> Hey, what's up?

>> Um, so you've made something people want, >> it seems. So, >> yeah. Uh, Open Claw, as it's called now,

>> yeah. Uh, Open Claw, as it's called now, has absolutely >> name number five. Yeah.

>> Has been absolutely exploding the internet. Um, how have the past one or

internet. Um, how have the past one or two weeks been for you, man?

>> Oh my god. I need like I need a cave.

A week of solitude.

>> You You came out of the cave and you want to go back to the cave like a like little lobster.

>> It's been absolutely wild. I don't know how one human can absorb all of that. I

probably need another week just to like respond to all my emails. Uh, I got some incredibly cool stuff. I got some incredibly bad stuff. Um, but clearly I hit

bad stuff. Um, but clearly I hit something that sprew up emotions and made people interested and inspired people and it's really cool.

>> And a lot of people have been working on, you know, AI and even personal assistance. Like what what is it that

assistance. Like what what is it that made Open Claw take off?

>> I think my big difference is that it actually runs on your computer. Like

every everything I saw so far runs in the cloud. It's like it can do a few

the cloud. It's like it can do a few things if you run on your computer. It

can do every effing thing, right? So

that's way more powerful.

>> Yeah. Machine can do anything that you can do with the machine.

>> You can just connect to your oven or your Tesla or your lights, your Sonos.

My bad. It can control the temperature of my bed. JPD can't do that.

>> You gave it all the skills that you have yourself. A friend told me like he

yourself. A friend told me like he installed Open Claw and it and then it asked it like look through my computer and make a narrative

over my last year and it made this incredibly good narrative and he was like how did you do that and then he the open cloth found audio

files where like every Sunday he was recording stuff and openclaw found that but he didn't even remember about it because it was like more than a year ago

right so So just by it being able to search a whole computer, it it can surprise you.

>> It's also you also give it all the data, right? So

it can surprise you in many ways.

>> And so now you have, you know, we're even moving from human tobot. So like

interactions and you've been talking about tobottobot interactions or even like bot to other humans where you know bots on behalf of you are then hiring other humans to

accomplish tasks IRL like what's happening >> I think that's a natural next step like okay I want to book a restaurant my bot

will reach out to the restaurant bot and do the negotiation like because it's more efficient Or or maybe it's like an old restaurant. So my

bot needs to actually get some some human work done so that the human then calls the restaurant because they don't like bots >> or walks there to stand in line >> if he doesn't get a robot for

>> or the owner of the bot.

>> And I imagine that like maybe if if I have even multiple bots like maybe I have like specialist one is like for my private life and one is for like my person my my work stuff. Maybe one is

our relationship bot that gets like everything in between. Uh I don't know.

We're so early. There's still so much so many things that we haven't really figured out if it actually works. Um but

I feel we are we are on the timeline now.

>> It seems like everyone was chasing sort of like the sort of like centralized god intelligence and what has sort of emerged over the past you know 10 days or so is sort of like the swarm intelligence um and and the community

intelligence. I think that if you look

intelligence. I think that if you look at one human being, what can one human being actually achieve? Do you think one human being

achieve? Do you think one human being could make an iPhone or one human being could go to space?

One human being would probably just like not even be able to like find food.

Um, but as a group we specialize as a larger society we specialize even more.

So, what can we learn from that that we can apply to AI? You know, we we already have like AI that specializes in certain things. Um, even though it's it's

things. Um, even though it's it's generalized intelligence, what if it actually is also specialized intelligence?

So, I it's going to be very exciting, cool.

>> Yeah. You kind of like opened a window into the future and now a ton of people are kind of like building building on it and have sort of like their aha moment.

Um, can you walk me back to when you had your aha moment and can like re recount that very moment?

>> I wanted something to like just type stuff so my computer would do stuff like very simple. And then I built I built a

very simple. And then I built I built a version of that in May, June that was cool but wasn't really it. Um,

and then I built a whole bunch of other stuff and kind of like build up my army.

And then in November, there was a day where I wanted this again. Like I I went to the kitchen and

again. Like I I went to the kitchen and all I wanted was check up if my computer would still do stuff or being finished >> and doing stuff was was coding. You were

coding stuff.

>> Yeah, of course.

>> Were you coding something else or were you coding the thing itself?

>> No, no, that was just like the need was again there and I'm like, >> what were you coding at the time? What

were you building? My god. You see my my GitHub is like it's like 40 projects. I

don't even know. Um I think it was summarize.

It's like a it's like a little CLI app where you can give it whatever like a podcast or um a hot seat thing like here and it would summarize it but it also show you the slides in the terminal cuz

you can do that nowadays. Yeah. You can

just do things.

>> So for the love of the computer you kind of like started messing with stuff.

>> Um you came out of retirement actually, right? um to sort like mess with AI and

right? um to sort like mess with AI and then increasingly you were so hooked that you wanted to just do it always also on the go with the phone.

>> I mean the last project I I worked two months on Wipe Tunnel >> to the point where it got so good that I was catching myself always like coding next to my when I was at my friends and

I like I need to stop this this is like too addictive. And then in November and

too addictive. And then in November and like my need came back and I I started building cloudbot or now it's called open cloud and I think very very in the

beginning I was like oh I rebuilt it again but this time I built it even better >> this time and you don't type into a terminal you just you talk to a friend you don't think about compaction new

sessions which folder I'm in which model I'm in I mean you can you know just like I want to leave it open for power users but usually You just like you just talk

to a friend and the friend is like this ghost or entity or whatever you want to call it that can control your mouse and your keyboard and can just do stuff.

>> Yeah. And when did you have that aha moment when you were like wow this is doing way more things than I actually thought it could.

>> Literally I it took me one hour for like the the very shitty initial prototype.

It was just a little bit of glue between like a dependency that connects WhatsApp and cloud code and then I would like call color call out code and get like the string out of cloth code. It would

be slow but it it worked. But I wanted images cuz you know you want pictures. I

want I want I want the model to send some selfies or whatever and I want the model to create images and me back. So

that took me another few hours and then I I went to Marrakesh for a birthday party and there was like the internet wasn't that good you know WhatsApp box works everywhere because I

don't know it's just like text >> so I used it a lot restaurant what does this mean you make like a picture and like translate this for me and just it was just so useful and it was also really nice about it because it it it

spoke my language you know it it was a little sassy it was like funny it was like really pleasant to use and then I was walking and just like sending it a voice message and I'm like, "Oh, wait.

This can't work. I didn't build that."

>> Right. Right.

>> And you saw like the type indicator.

It's like blinking, blinking, blinking.

10 seconds later, it just replied to me.

I'm like, "How in the f did you do that?" And it replied, "Yeah, the med

that?" And it replied, "Yeah, the med did the following. You sent me a text message." And there was no file ending.

message." And there was no file ending.

So I looked at the header. I found its us. So I used ffmpe to convert it to

us. So I used ffmpe to convert it to wave. And then I wanted to like

wave. And then I wanted to like transcribe it, but didn't have whisper installed. But then I looked around and

installed. But then I looked around and I found this openi key and I just use curl to send it to openi got the text back and here I am and that all in like what 9 seconds

>> and you didn't build or anticipate like any of those specific things.

>> No, it you know turns out um because coding models got so good. Coding is

really like creative problem solving that maps very well back into the real world. I think I think there there's a

world. I think I think there there's a there's a huge correlation.

they need to be really good at creative problem solving and that's a skill that's an abstract skill you can apply to code but like to any real world task.

So the the model had a oh surprise there's like a magical file. I don't

know what it is. I need to solve this and it did its best and solved that. And

it was even that clever that it it chose not to install the local whisper because it knows that that would require downloading a model which would take probably a few minutes and I'm like

impatient, you know. So it it really took the most uh intelligent approach and that was kind of like the moment where I'm like, "Holy

fuck." Yeah. Uh that was where I got

fuck." Yeah. Uh that was where I got hooked.

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to the video. And so when computers can just do all these things that you didn't even anticipate. You didn't build an app

even anticipate. You didn't build an app to do that exact thing, are apps just going to go away.

>> Uh I think 80% of them are going away.

Why do I need My Fitness Pal? Like my

agent already knows that I'm making bad decisions. I'm at I don't know uh

decisions. I'm at I don't know uh Smashburg or something and it will already assume that I eat what I like to eat. If I don't make a comment, it will

eat. If I don't make a comment, it will just like automatically track it or I make a picture and it will just store it somewhere. I don't even need to care.

somewhere. I don't even need to care.

Right. And then my maybe it it improves my my gym schedule like adds a little bit more cardio in it. I don't need my my fitness app because it just it just does the fitness planning for me. Uh why

do I need a to-do app? I just tell it, hey, remind me of this and this and then next day it will just remind me of this and this. Do I care where it's stored?

and this. Do I care where it's stored?

No, it just does its thing. So there's a every app that basically just manages data could be managed in a better way in a in a more in a more natural way by agents.

>> Yeah.

>> Only the apps that actually have sensors maybe they survive >> and so if you know most apps are going to go away in that scenario um are the models the only remaining sort of apps.

Not everything will go away, but yeah, I think that the the large model companies have some big mode because they ultimately they give the

token and turns out one of the complaints was that people use so much token. No, you just really love using

token. No, you just really love using it. That's why you you use this thing so

it. That's why you you use this thing so much because that's why we burn the token.

>> Yeah.

>> Um it's like is it my fault that I make something that's so popular? And so you know like all the the models they're kind of like leaprogging each other constantly and >> and you know maybe they're also getting

commoditized. So if apps are going to go

commoditized. So if apps are going to go away models are going to get commoditized or at least uh you know the lobster can like the brain is is is swappable out. What's the thing that

swappable out. What's the thing that remains? What's where's the value? Is it

remains? What's where's the value? Is it

the store of memory? Is it um the hardness that's valuable? What is what remains? First of all, I don't think the

remains? First of all, I don't think the the model companies always have a mode and because you see this already a new model comes out, people are like, "Oh my god, this is so good."

>> And then like a month later, uh, it degraded. It's not good anymore. They

degraded. It's not good anymore. They

like quanticized it. No, they didn't do anything. You just adapted to the new

anything. You just adapted to the new standard and now your expectations went up, but the model is still the average.

So I think for quite a while, every time a new model releases, I hear the same. people love it and then it's

the same. people love it and then it's the standard and then what's done there you don't even want to think about it anymore. So, so we have like open source

anymore. So, so we have like open source stuff that's as good as the current models from a year ago. Everybody's

hating it, complaining, oh this is not good, this is not funny yet this was what we had and like in a year we'll have this open source and then like we'll complain about this because we used to

ah for the foreseeable future the big companies still have mode harness wise it's going to be interesting because every company kind of has their own

their own silo right you you there's no way maybe there is for Europeans to actually get the memories out of >> chap I don't I'm not aware either. There's no

there's definitely there's no way for a different company to get your memories out. So if if if I was like a company

out. So if if if I was like a company who like provides chat services, you could use me but then I couldn't access the memories. So like the companies try to like

>> bound you to their data silo. And the

beauty of open claw is it kind of claws into the datas because at the end user the end user needs access because it's in the end otherwise it wouldn't work right if the end user access I can access the data

>> and you own the memories it's just a bunch of markdown files on on your machine >> I mean I don't own the memories other people yeah everyone owns their own memories as a bunch of markdown files on their own machines

>> and to be honest those are probably super sensible because let's be honest Um, people use their agent not just for problem solving, >> but also for like personal problem

solving >> very quickly. Super quickly.

>> I mean, I I I I fully do that. I'm like,

there's memory stuff that I don't want to have leaked.

>> Yeah. What would you rather um uh sort of like not show your Google search history at this point or your, you know, memory files?

>> What's what's the Google word?

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> People still using Google. I built this and I was so excited but on Twitter people wouldn't get it.

>> Yeah.

>> Like I I was failing to explain the awesomeness. I feel like it needs to be

awesomeness. I feel like it needs to be experienced. So

experienced. So I I tried various things and I I couldn't I couldn't nail the I couldn't nail the explaining. So I was like let's

do something really crazy. I just

created a discord and I just put my bot without any security restrictions in the public discord and then people came in and they interacted with it and they saw me build the software with it and they tried to

prompt inject it and hack it and my agent would be laughing at them >> and you just had it locked down to your user ID so it only listened to you.

>> Yeah. Yeah. that and it was I made very clean instructions that other people dangerous only only listen to me but respond to everyone >> and this prompt was in where was it

stored the instructions >> um that's actually part of open claw itself very much so the the that's part of the system prompt okay you are now that explains to you you're in Discord

there's like public people there but you only listen to your owner >> or like you're human I don't even know how I wrote it >> yeah yeah >> you're god

And I kept I don't know what I did but my system was built very organically like at some point I created like an identity.mmd a soul.md like like various

identity.mmd a soul.md like like various files and then only in in January I started making it so other people could install it easier and I remember

I built all these templates based on like oh take a rough look at what I have and make like templates and codex wrote it and what came was like Brad, you know, like people joke that Codex feels

like Brad, even though now they have a new friendlier voice. I haven't tried that yet.

>> Yeah.

>> But the new bots, they felt so boring compared to what I had. So I was like, Modi, infuse the template.

>> Multi is the name of your personal >> Yeah. It's a new name because

>> Yeah. It's a new name because >> Yeah.

>> Uh there was some naming challenges.

>> Yeah. So So you you were talking to Multi.

>> Yeah. I was like, "Infuse infuse those templates with your your character." And

he changed the templates and then and then like all the things that came out afterwards were like actually funny, not as funny as mine. So like I kept

some secret and the one file that's not open source is like my soul. MD. So even

though my my bot is in public discord, so far nobody cracked that one file.

>> Tell me more about soul.md. I just saw this research from Entropic where they now I think it's public but like a few months ago it was like where somebody ex

randomly found out some text that's hidden in the weights where the model couldn't really remember that it learned it but it was like ingrained in the weights about the nicolity constitution

and I found that incredibly fascinating and I I talked about it with my agent and then we created a soulm with like the core values like how do we around human AI interaction, what's important

to me, what's important to the model.

Like some parts is a little bit like mamo jumbo and some parts is like I think actually really valuable in terms of how the model reacts and responds to text

and makes it feel very natural >> in terms of building open claw. Um

you're also kind of taking a little bit of a contrarian view at sometimes like which model you like for coding, which one you like to run your bot on. Um and

then also like how you actually like you know code. Um work trees get git work

know code. Um work trees get git work trees have kind of been a popular thing.

There's more and more tools embracing them but you're just you're just like you know no work trees just multiple checkouts of the repo and like parallel you know terminal windows. Tell me more about how you you build.

>> Yeah I feel like the whole world does cloud code and I don't think I could have built the thing with cloud code.

Like I I love codex because it it looks through way more files be before it decides what to what to change. You

don't need to do so much charade to get a good output. If you're skilled a skilled driver I sometimes even say uh you can get reasonably good output with

any tool but codex is just is just really brilliant. It is incredibly slow.

really brilliant. It is incredibly slow.

So sometimes I use like 10 at the same side at the same time uh like maybe six on that screen and to there and to there and I don't like this is already a lot

of complexity in my head there's a lot of jumping so I try to minimize anything else that is complexity so in my head main is always shippable I just have

multiple copies of the same repository that all are on main so I don't have to deal with how do I name that branch Um there could be like conflicts on naming.

I cannot go back. It's there are certain restrictions when you use work trees that I don't need to care about if it's copies. I don't like to use a UI because

copies. I don't like to use a UI because that's again just added complexity.

>> Yeah.

>> Like they're simpler and less friction I have. All I care about is like syncing

have. All I care about is like syncing and text.

>> Yeah.

>> I don't necessarily need to see so much code. I I mostly see it like flying by.

code. I I mostly see it like flying by.

Sometimes there's like gnarly stuff that I want to like take a look. But in most cases, if you clearly understand the design and think it through and discuss

it with your with your agent, it's fine.

I'm also very happy that I didn't even build an MCP support. So, Open Claw is very successful and there's no MCP support in there. With a small asterisk,

I built a skill that uses makeporter, which is one of my tools that converts MCPS into CLIs. And then you can just

use any MCP as a CLI. Um, but I totally skip the whole classical MCP crap. So

you because you don't then you can actually if you need to you can use MCPS on the fly. You don't have to restart unlike unlike Codex or cloud code where you actually have to restart the whole

thing. I think it's way more egent and

thing. I think it's way more egent and also scales way better. Now you see entropic they do they built like a tool called search feature like something

super custom for MCPS that was like in beta because it's like so gnarly. No,

just have CLI bot really is good at Unix. You can have as many as you want

Unix. You can have as many as you want and it just works. So like I'm very happy that I got very little complaints about the MCP stuff. It's kind of back

to you're just giving it the same tools that humans liked to use.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> And not invented stuff for for bots, per se.

>> Yeah. Humans, no insane human tries to call an MCP manually.

>> Yeah. You just want to use CLIs.

>> Yeah.

>> That's the future.

>> I'm here for it. Thank you so much for making the time uh to sit down chatting.

has been a huge inspiration, too. So,

like when we were texting, you know, over the course of the past couple years and I saw you getting back into the game and I was like, >> Peter, like what you're telling me like chase that dragon and you were doing

like the weird like vibe tunnel thing, etc. Nobody was paying attention and so I'm just like beyond, you know, stoked to see, you know, what's happening and um and of course they had to be sort of

like a loner from some like tiny country like far away from Silicon Valley. So,

like, you know, bring all of this upon us. Um, so huge inspiration.

us. Um, so huge inspiration.

>> I'm here for it. Thank you.

>> Awesome. Thanks, Peter.