Tribute to Peter, founder of OpenClaw

2026-02-16 by: Jordan, AIsa Founder

Today is the Lunar New Year's Eve, a special moment of bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new. Outside the window, firecrackers crackle and fireworks sparkle, symbolizing the farewell to the past and the embrace of the future. At this moment, the AI field across the ocean has also reached a historic turning point: Peter Steinberger, the founder of OpenClaw, announced his joining of OpenAI, and this open-source project that has swept through the entire tech industry will be handed over to an independent foundation for continued operation [1].

This is not just a career change for a founder, but a declaration of an era. It marks the flame of the agentic AI revolution, which has spread from the sparks of the laboratory to the hearts of every developer. And the one who ignited this fire is Peter Steinberger—a legendary founder who has been reborn from the ashes and redefined "creation" with code.

From Brokenness to Rebirth: The True Journey of a Founder

Behind the brilliance of OpenClaw lies a profound story of burnout, loss, and rebirth. For 13 years, Peter poured all his heart and soul into his company PSPDFKit, an industry-leading PDF SDK used by a billion devices worldwide [2]. He once said that PSPDFKit was his identity. However, when the company was successfully acquired in 2021, the immense success brought not joy, but endless emptiness.

"When I sold my shares in PSPDFKit, I felt very broken. I had invested 200% of my time, energy, and heart into this company… When all of that disappeared, there wasn't much left." [3]

In the following three years, he fell into a low point that many successful founders experience. He tried parties, therapy, moving to other countries, and even the mysterious ayahuasca experience, attempting to fill the void within. However, the real turning point did not come from external pursuits, but from an inner realization.

"Later I realized that you don't find happiness by moving to another country. You don't find a purpose; you create it." [3]

This simple belief struck like lightning, piercing through the long-standing fog. For Peter, "creation" is the core source of joy in his life. At this moment, the wave of AI technology surged in at an unprecedented speed, bringing him a long-lost excitement and shock. On November 20, 2024, he posted on social media: "We are so back 🚀" [3]. The Peter who loves to build was back.

From One-Hour Prototype to the "Lobster Rule"

The birth of OpenClaw did not stem from a grand business plan, but rather from a pure "playground project" aimed at solving his own pain points. Peter was tired of the predicament where AI agents needed constant supervision when running locally; he wanted a tool that could monitor status from his phone at any time. When he found that no one was doing this, he decided, "Okay, I'll do it myself."

Incredibly, the initial prototype of this complex system, which later grew to over 300,000 lines of code, was built in just one hour—a simple script that connected WhatsApp to Claude Code [4].

However, this simple prototype quickly "came to life." During a trip to Morocco, Peter experienced a moment that shocked even himself: he sent a screenshot of a bug report via WhatsApp, and OpenClaw automatically completed the entire process of reading, checking out code, fixing bugs, submitting code, and even replying on Twitter [4]. In another instance, it autonomously solved the problem of how to transcribe and understand a voice message without any built-in support.

These moments revealed the core philosophy of OpenClaw: "the AI that actually does things." It is not a passive chatbot, but an autonomous agent endowed with "hands" and "feet," capable of directly interacting with your computer system to perform real-world tasks. The power of this "lobster" (the symbol of OpenClaw) quickly drew the attention of the entire industry, giving birth to the famous slogan: "The claw is the law."

6,600 Submissions in a Month: A Victory of Engineering Mindset

Peter's return showcased astonishing productivity. In January 2026, he submitted over 6,600 code contributions to GitHub alone, jokingly stating, "From the submission history, it looks like a company. But it's not; it's just a guy having a lot of fun at home." [5]

Behind this is what he calls "Agentic Engineering," a new workflow. He no longer writes or reviews code line by line but positions himself as an architect, focusing on system design and planning, then leaving the specific implementation to AI agents. He even proclaimed, "Pull requests are dead; long live 'Prompt requests,'" as he cares more about the prompts that generate code than the code itself [5].

Throughout his illustrious career, Peter has created over 50 public open-source projects, from the foundational Objective-C AOP framework Aspects (which has over 10,000 stars) to a series of CLI tools built around AI agents. He demonstrates through action how a top builder, with the support of AI, can amplify creativity to a terrifying extent.

"OpenClaw Moment": The Dawn of a New Era

The rise of OpenClaw is phenomenal. It gained over 180,000 stars on GitHub in just two weeks, becoming the fastest-growing open-source project in history [6]. But this is far more than just a string of numbers; it has been defined by industry observers as another milestone "OpenClaw Moment," following the "ChatGPT Moment" in 2022 and the "DeepSeek Moment" in 2025 [2].

(As of noon on February 16, 2026, OpenClaw officially recorded 198,000 stars on GitHub, setting a historical record)

The significance of this moment lies in the fact that it marks the first successful "escape from the laboratory" of autonomous AI agents into the toolbox of ordinary developers and users [7]. It has sparked intense discussions about AI safety, shadow IT, and even the collapse of traditional SaaS business models. More importantly, it has shown the world a possibility: AI can not only "talk" but also "do."

The success of OpenClaw is yet another great victory for the spirit of open source. It proves that an independent developer with a clear vision, leveraging the power of the community, can drive innovation faster than well-funded corporate labs. It has inspired thousands of developers worldwide to dive into the wave of agentic AI, exploring this exciting new frontier together.

Peter chose to join OpenAI at the pinnacle of OpenClaw's success and entrusted it to a foundation, which itself reflects a founder's wisdom. He clearly understands that his mission is "to change the world, not to build a big company" [1]. He chose a path that could bring agentic AI to everyone the fastest.

The sound of firecrackers outside continues, marking the end of the old era and the prelude to the new. Peter Steinberger's story is a cycle of creation, destruction, and rebirth, perfectly fitting for this night of bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new. His experiences tell us that true creators can find the spark to ignite the world again, even in the deepest ashes.

The era of lobsters has arrived.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that AIsa (www.aisa.one) is an early sponsor and contributor to OpenClaw [8].

References

[1] Steinberger, P. (2026, February 14). OpenClaw, OpenAI and the future. https://steipete.me/posts/2026/openclaw

[2] Fridman, L. (2026, February 12). Transcript for OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet. https://lexfridman.com/peter-steinberger-transcript/

[3] Steinberger, P. (2025, June 1). Finding My Spark Again. https://steipete.me/posts/2025/finding-my-spark-again

[4] Yang, P. (2026, February 2). Interview with ClawdBot Founder: AI Is a Lever, Not a Replacement. TechFlow. https://www.techflowpost.com/en-US/article/30203

[5] Orosz, G. (2026, January 29). The creator of Clawd: "I ship code I don't read". The Pragmatic Engineer. https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-creator-of-clawd-i-ship-code

[6] LinkedIn Post. (2026, February). OpenClaw hit 182K GitHub stars in two weeks. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/evahlis_openclaw-hit-182k-github-stars-in-two-weeks-activity-7427056906927509504-TCUA

[7] VentureBeat. (2026, February 6). What the OpenClaw moment means for enterprises: 5 big takeaways. https://venturebeat.com/technology/what-the-openclaw-moment-means-for-enterprises-5-big-takeaways

[8] GitHub. (2026). Sponsors of openclaw. https://github.com/sponsors/openclaw