OpenClaw Interview (English transcript, verbatim)

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uzGDAoNOZc
Note: This is a verbatim transcript reformatted with paragraphs/punctuation only; no content has been omitted.

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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.

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The community has built countless projects like Maltbook where bots talk among themselves. And now the bots are even renting humans to do tasks in the real 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.

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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,

has absolutely

name number five. Yeah. [laughter]

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

Oh my god. I need like I need a cave. [laughter] 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.

[snorts]

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 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 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 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. [laughter]

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

at one human being,

what can one human being actually

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

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

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

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

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

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

did the following. You sent me a text

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

wave. And then I wanted to like

transcribe it, but didn't have whisper

installed. But then I looked around and

I found this openi key and I just use

curl to send it to openi [laughter]

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

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

hooked.

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[music]

Okay, back 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 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

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

just like automatically track it or I

make a picture and it will just store it

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?

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 [clears throat] that

the the large model companies have some

big mode [sighs]

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

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

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

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

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

like quanticized it. No, they didn't do

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 standard and then what's done there

you don't even want to think about it

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

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

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

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.

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 [snorts] 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

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.

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

that's again just added complexity.

Yeah.

Like they're simpler and less friction I

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.

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

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

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 [laughter] 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.

I'm here for it. Thank you.

Awesome. Thanks, Peter.

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