YouSaid · the spoken record

Peter Steinberger

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170
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2026-02-12
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2026-02-12
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  1. “There's this whole builder vibe again. People Using AI in a more playful way and are discovering What it can do and how it can help them in their life. Creating new Places that are just brawling of creativity. I don't know, like there's like Clawkhorn in Vienna. There's like 500 people. And there's such a high percentage of people that I want to present, which is to me really surprising because usually. It's quite hard to find people that want to talk about what they built. And now there's an abundance. So that gives me hope that we can Can figure shit”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Enables people to do a lot more, a lot faster. And it will be even faster and even more because those things are continuously improving. We had similar things when it's probably not a perfect analogy, but when we created the steam engine and they built all these factories and replaced a lot of manual labor and then people revolted and broke the machines, I can relate that If you're very deeply. Identify that you are a programmer. I did scary and that it's threatening because what you like and what you're really good at is now being done. So less or not entity But I don't think you're just a programmer. That's a very limiting view of your craft. You're still a builder.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I also got a lot of joy out of just. Writing code and being really deep in my thoughts and forgetting Time and space Being in this beautiful state of flow, but you can get the same state of flow. I get a similar state of flow by working with agents and building and thinking really hard about problems. It is different. It's okay to mourn it, but that's not something we can fight. Like there is the world for a long time had a Was a lack of intelligence. If you see it like that, Of people building things. And that's why salaries of software developers reached Stupidly high amounts. And then we'll go away There will still be a lot of demand for people that understand how to build things. Just that all these. Tokenized intelligence.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Me definitely going in that direction. Programming is just a part of building products. So maybe I does replace programmers eventually. There's so much more to that art What do you actually want to build? How should it feel How's the architecture? I don't think agents will replace all of that. Yeah, like just the actual art of programming, it will stay there, but it's going to be like, Knitting, you know, like people do that because they like it, not because it makes any sense. So I read this article this morning About someone that it's okay to mourn our craft. And I can, a part of me very strongly resonates with that because in my past, I spent a lot of time thinkering, just being really deep in the flow and just like cranking out code and like finding really beautiful solutions. Yes, in a way it's It's sad because that will go away.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “But you see that this is something that the people want. If I'm on the go I don't want to open a calendar app. I just want to tell my agent, hey, remind me about this dinner tomorrow night and maybe invite you of my friends and then maybe send a WhatsApp message to my friend. And I don't need, I don't want I need to open apps for that. I think that V pasta at age. And now everything is much more connected and fluid if those companies want it or not. And I think we'll. The right companies will find ways to jump on the train and other companies will.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Even search, and I use, I think perplexity or brave as providers because Google really doesn't make it easy to use Google without Google. I'm not sure if that's the right strategy, but I'm not Google.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Yeah, I mean, I watch my agent happily click that I'm not a robot button. This whole that's going to be It's going to be more heated. You see companies Cloudflare that Try to prevent bot access. And in some ways, that's useful for scraping. But in other ways, if I'm a personal user, I want that. You know, sometimes I use Codex and I read an article about. Modern React patterns And it's like a medium article. I paste it in, and the agent can't read it because they block it. So I have to copy-paste the actual text. Or in the future, I learned that maybe I don't click on medium because it's annoying and I use other websites that actually are agent friendly.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Some companies were really not like that. For example, there's no CLI for Google. So I had to like, Have to do anything myself and build GOG that's like a CLI for Google. And at the end user, they have to give me the emails because otherwise I cannot use their product. If I'm a company and I try to get Google data, Gmail, there's a whole complicated process to the point where sometimes startups acquire startups that went through that process so they don't have to work with Google for half a year to be certified to being able to access Gmail. But my agent can access Gmail because I can just connect to it. Still crappy because I need to like go through Google's developer jungle to get a key and it's still annoying, but they cannot prevent me. And worst case, my agent just clicks on the website and gets the data out that way.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “And also Will become API if they want or not because my agent can figure out how to use my phone. I mean, on the upper side, it's a little more tricky. On Android, that's already people already do that. And then it will just click the order Uber from me button for me, or maybe another service. Or maybe there's an API can call so it's faster. I think there's a space we are just beginning to even understand what that means. And I, again, I didn't even, that was not something I thought of, something that I... That I discovered as people used this. I mean, we are still so early. But yeah, I think data is very important, like apps that can give me data, but that also can be API. Why do I need a Sonos app anymore when my agent can talk to the Sonos? Speakers directly. Like my cameras, there's like a crappy app.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Was a new services that we will need, right? For example, I want my agent to have an allowance. You solve problems for me. He has like 100 bucks in order to solve problems for me. And if I tell it to order me food, maybe it uses a service. Maybe it uses something like rent a human to just get that done for me. I don't actually care. I care about solve my problem. There's space for new companies that solved that well. Maybe not all apps disappear. Maybe some transform into being API.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “But it can modify my gym workout based on how well I slept, or if I have stress or not, like it has so much more context to make even better decisions than any of the Zap even could do. It could show me UI just as I like. Why do I send me an app to do that? Why should I pay another subscription for something that the agent can just do now And why do I need my eight sleep app to control my bed when I tell the agent to, no, the agent already knows where I am so I can like turn off what I don't use. And I think that will translate into a whole category of apps that are no longer, I will just naturally stop using because my agent can just do it better.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Yeah, uh I noticed that on Discord people just said, What they build and what they use it for? And why do you need MyFitness Paul when the agent already knows where I am? So can I assume that I make bad decisions when I'm at, I don't know, Waffle House. What's around here or briskets in Austin?”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Or even those images, like all these infographics and stuff, they trigger me so hard. Immediately makes me think less of your content. And they were novel for like one week. And now it just screams Even if people work hard on it Us I have some on my blog post in the time where I explore this new medium, but now they trigger me as well. It's like, yeah, this just screams the AI slop.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “I also realized the thing that I rave about AI and use it so much for anything that's code, but I'm allergic if it's stories”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Nuances that how I would write it. You can steer it towards your style, but it's not going to be all your style. So I completely moved away from that. Everything I blog is organic handwritten. Maybe I use AI as a fix my worst typos. Value in The rough parts of an actual human.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “If it's marked, then it should also be difficult to filter I can look at it if I want to, but This is like a big thing we need to solve right now. Especially on this project, I get so many emails that are Say nicely authentically written Much rather read your broken English than your AI slop. Of course, there's a human behind it and yeah, they prompted. I'd rather read your prompt than what came out. I think we are reaching a point where I value typos again I mean, it also took me a while to come to the realization on my blog I experimented with creating a blog post with agents Ultimately, it took me about the same time to steer agent towards something I like, but it missed.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “We need to rethink social platforms a little bit if we go towards the future where. Everyone has the agent, and agents maybe have their own Instagram profiles. Twitter accounts, or I can do stuff on my behalf. I think it should very clearly be marked that they are doing stuff on my behalf and it's not me. Because content is now so cheap. Are the expensive part. And I find it very triggering when I read something and then I'm like, oh, now this smells like AI.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yeah, I mean, and to be frank, I mean, I told Twitter proactively that, hey, I built this and there's a need. And they've been really nice, but also like take it down, fair, totally fair. But I hope that. Just woke up to Tina a little bit that there's a need. And if all you do is making it slower, you're just reducing access to your platform. I'm sure there's a better way. I also, I'm very much Against any automation on Twitter. If you tweeted me with AI, I will block you. No first strike. As soon as it smells like AI, an AI still has a smell. Especially on tweets, it's very hard to tweet in a way that does look completely human. Book F0. And I think it would be very helpful if like tweets done via API would be marked Maybe there's some special cases where. There should be a very easy way for agents to get their own Twitter account.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “I think if you have a very low Per day line. Pair account that allows read-only access. Would solve a lot of problems. There's plenty automations where people create a bookmark and then use OpenCloud to find the bookmark, do research on it, and send you an email It's like more details on it or a summary. That's a cool approach. I also want all my bookmarks somewhere to search. I would still like to have that.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “All they did is they just made access slower. You're not actually taking a feature away. But now if your agent wants to read a read, it actually has to open the browser and read the tweet. And it will still be able to read the tweet. It will just take longer. It's not like you're making something that was possible, not possible. No, now it's just ticking slower. So it doesn't really matter if your service wants to be an API or not If I can access in the browser. ESAPI is a slow API.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “That gets into the whole arch of every app is just a very slow API now, if you want or not. Through personal agents, a lot of Apps will disappear. You know, like I had a, I built CLI for Twitter I mean, I just Reverse engineered the website and use the internal API, which is not very allowed.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “But if I would build the same as a CLI and it would give me this huge blob, it could just add a JQ command and filter itself. And then only get me what I actually need. Or maybe even compose it into a script to do some calculations with the temperature and only give me the exact output. And you have no context pollution. Again, you can solve that with sub agents and more charades, but it's just like workarounds for something that Might not be the optimal way. It definitely was good that we had MCPs because it pushed a lot of companies towards building APIs. And now I can look at an MCP and just make it into a CLI. But just inherent problem that MCPs by default clutter up your context. Plus, the fact that most MCPs are not made good in general. Make it just not a very useful paradigm. There's some exceptions”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I think the main beauty is that models are really good at calling Unix commands. So if you just add another CLI, that's just another Unix command in the end MCPs that has to be added in training. That's not a very natural thing for the model. It requires a very specific syntax. And the biggest thing is not composable. So imagine if I have a service that gives me better data and gives me the temperature, the average temperature, rain, wind, and all the other stuff. And I get like this huge blobback. As a model, I always have to get the huge blob back. I have to fill my context with that huge blob and then pick what I want. There's no way for the model to naturally filter unless I think about it proactively and add a filtering way into my MCP.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “That explains the skill, and then the model owes the skill and that explains the CLI, and then the model uses the CLI. Some skills are like raw, but most of the time, networks.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “You know what I love? Half a year ago, everyone was talking about MCPs. And I was like, screw MCPs. Every MCP would be better as a CLI. And now Stuff doesn't even have MCP support. I mean, it has with asterisks, but not in the core layer, and nobody's complaining. So, my approach You want to extend the model with more features, you just build a CLI and the model can call the CLI, probably get it wrong, calls to help menu, and then on demand loads into the context what it needs to use the CLI. It just needs a sentence to know that the CLI exists if it's something that the model doesn't know by default. Even for a while, I didn't really care about skills, but skills are actually perfect for that because they boil down to a single sentence.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “And then, yeah, and the project is all just glue of a few different dependencies, and there's nothing original. Why do people You know, isn't Dropbox just FTP with extra steps? I found it surprising where I had a shoulder operation a few months ago. The model rarely used Heartbeat, but then I was in the hospital. And it knew that I had the operation and it checked up on me. It's like, are you okay? And I just, it's like, again, apparently, like, if something significant in the context that triggered a heartbeat when it rarely used the heartbeat. And it does that sometimes for people. And that just makes it a lot more relatable.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Yeah, right. The criticisms that you get. You can deduce any idea to a silly, yeah, it's just. It's just a crunch shop in the end. I have like separate crone shops.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “And I just made a proactive. So I added a prompt. Initially, it was just a prompt surprise me. Like half an hour. Surprised me, you know, and later on I changed it to be like a little more specific in the definition of surprise. But the fact that I made it proactive and that it knows you and that it cares about you, at least it's programmed to do that. That is a follow on your current session makes it very interesting because it would just sometimes ask a follow up question or like, how's your day? I mean, Again, Creepy or weird or interesting, but Hype it very in the beginning still today it doesn't the model doesn't choose to use it a lot”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Yeah, because it's like the hello world in AI, you know, it's actually quite simple. And it's good to understand that. Stuff's not magic. You can even easily build it yourself Writing your own little clawed code. I even did this at a conference in Paris for people to introduce them to AI. I think it has a fun little practice. And you covered a lot. I think one. One silly idea I had that turned out to be quite cool I built this thing. With full system access. So it's like, with great power becomes great responsibility. And I was like, how can I up the stakes a little bit more?”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “I am super pumped, and you know the beauty is if you If it doesn't work out, I can just do my own thing again. I told them, like, I. I don't do this for the money. I don't give a fuck. I mean, of course, of course, it's a nice compliment, but. I want to have fun and have impact. And that's ultimately. Made my decision”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Didn't drift away in just being a manager. He gets me. That was a good first start. And then I think we had like a 10-minute fight, what's better, Cloud Code or Codex? I guess that's the thing you first do that you casually call someone that owns one of the largest companies in the world and you have a 10 minutes conversation about that And then I think afterwards, he called me eccentric but brilliant. But I also had some really Really cool discussion with Sam Otman. And he's He's very thoughtful. Brill I like him a lot from the little time I had. I know some people vilify both of those people. I don't think it's fair”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “When they first approached me. I got him in my. In my WhatsApp, and he was asking, yeah, when here we have a call. And I'm like, I don't like calendar entries. Let's just call now. And it was like, yeah, give me 10 minutes. I need to finish coding. I guess that gives you streak cred. It's like, he's still writing code.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Know both Ned and Mark. Basically, played all week with my product and sent me like, oh, this is great. Oh, this is shit. Oh, I need to change this. Or funny little anecdotes. People using your stuff is kind of like the biggest compliment and also shows me that they actually. Do you actually care about it? And I didn't get the same on the Open AI side. I practiced some other stuff that I find really cool. They lure I cannot tell the exact number because of NDA, but you can be creative and think of the cerebrus deal and how that would translate into speed Very intriguing, you know, like you give me source hammer. We've been lured with tokens So, yeah.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “India and they're both amazing. I cannot go wrong. There's like one of the most prestigious and largest Those very cool companies.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “I spend time with both of those. And it's funny because a few weeks ago I didn't consider any of this. And it's really fucking hard I know normal people at OpenAI. I love the attack. I think I'm the biggest Codex advertisement shill that's unpaid. And it would feel so gratifying to like... A price with all the work I did for free. I would love if something happens and those companies get just merged because it's like,”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “We know what also people don't really see is I made this in three months. I did other things as well. I heard a lot of projects. Like this is not, yeah, in January, this was my main focus because I saw the storm coming. But before that, I built a whole bunch of other things. I have so many ideas. Some should be there. Some would be much better fitted when I have access to... The latest toys. And I kind of want to have access to like the latest toys. So, this is important, this is cool, this will continue to exist. My short-term focus is like working through those, is it 3000 PRs in Nobana? I don't even know. There's a little bit of backlog. But this is not going to be the thing that I'm going to work until I'm 80. This is a window into the future. You're going to make this into a cool product. But yeah, I have more ideas.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Based on their rules. Using the subscription is problematic or whatever. And he was like devastated. And then he signed up for Minimax for 10 bucks a month and uses that. I think that's silly in many ways because you just go to 200 buck customer. Made someone hate your company. And we are still so early. Like, we don't even know what the final form is. Is it going to be cloud code? Probably not. That seems very short sighted to lock down your product so much. All the other companies have been helpful. I'm in slack of. Of most of the big labs, kind of everybody understands that we are still in an era of exploration, in the area of The radio show is on TV And not a modern TV show that fully uses the format.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Like someone who uses the computer but never really, like, yeah, I use some chat GPT sometimes, but not very technical. Wouldn't really understand what I built. So, like, I'll show you, and I paid for him the 90 buck, 100 buck, I don't know, subscription for entropic. And set up everything for him with VWSL Windows. I was curious would it actually work on Windows, you know? It was a little early And then within a few days, he was hawked. Like he texted me all the things he learned. He built even little tools. He's not a programmer. And then within a few days, he upgraded to the $200 subscription. Oh, Euros, because he's in Austria. And he was in love with that thing. That for me was like a very early product validation. It's like, I built something that. Captures people. And then a few days later, Entropy blocked him.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “I love this. Like, this needs to stay a place where people can hack and learn. But also I'm very excited to like. Make this into a version that I can get to a lot of people because I think this is the personal agents and that's the future. The fastest way to do that is teaming up with one of the labs. I also, on a personal level, I never worked at a large company. And I'm intrigued. We talk about experiences. Will I like it? I don't know. But I want that experience. I'm sure I announce this, then there will be people like, oh, he sold out, blah, blah, blah. The project will continue from everything I talked to so far. I can even have more resources. For that, both of those. Companies understand the value that I created something that accelerates our timeline and that got people excited about AI. I mean”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Yeah. Not sure Mato should share there. It's not quite finalized yet. Let's just say, like, On either of these My conditions are that the project stays open source, that it Maybe it's going to be a model like Chrome and Chromium. I think this is too important to just give to a company and make it theirs. We didn't even talk about the whole community part, but like the thing that I experienced in San Francisco, I got Clawcon, seeing so many people so inspired and having fun and just building shit and having like robots in lobster stuff walking around. People told me, like, they didn't experience this level of community excitement since the early days of the internet, like 10, 15 years. And there were a lot of high caliber people there. I was amazed. I also was very sensibly overloaded because too many people wanted to do selfies.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “I mean, it's like, I guess something between 10 and 20 K a month. Which is fine. And I'm sure over time I could get that done. Open nice helping out a little bit with tokens now, and there's other companies that have been generous. But yeah, still losing money on that. That's one part I consider, but I'm just not very excited. And then there's all the big labs that I've been talking to. And from Meta and OpenAI seemed the most interesting.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Not a lot. I still lose money on the project because I made the point of supporting every dependency except Slack. They are a big company. They can do without me. But all the projects that are done by mostly individuals. So like all the right now, all the sponsorship goes right up to my dependencies. And if there's more, I want to like. Buy my contributor some merch, you know?”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “And second of all, I like the idea that it's free as in beer and not free with conditions. There's ways how you keep all of that for free and just still try to make money, but those are very difficult. And you see few and fewer companies manage that. Even Tailwind, they're used by everyone. Everyone uses Tailwind, right? And then they had to cut off 75% of the employees because they're not making money because nobody's even going on the website anymore because it's all done by agents. And just relying on donations. Yeah, good luck. Like, if a project of my Cal If I extrapolate what the typical open source project would get.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Yeah, it just doesn't accept me as much because I feel I did all of that and Take a lot of time away from the things I actually enjoy. Same as when I was CEO, I think I learned to do it and I'm not bad at it. Partly I'm good at it. But yeah, that path doesn't excite me too much. And I also fear it would create a natural conflict of interest. Like, what's the most obvious thing I do? I productize it with a version safe for workplace. And then what do you do? I get a pull request with... Feature like an audit log. But that seems like an enterprise feature. So now I feel I have a conflict of interest in the open source version and the closed source version. Or change the license to something like FSL where you cannot actually use it for commercial stuff would first be very difficult without the contributions.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Explain my thinking a little bit, right? I did not expect this blowing up so much. So, there's a lot of doors that open because of it. There's like I think every VC. Every big VC companies in my books and try to get 15 minutes of me. So This butterfly effect moment, I could just do nothing and continue. And I really like my life. Valid choice, almost I considered it when I deleted, wanted to delete the whole thing. Create a company Been So many people that push me towards that. And yeah, could be amazing.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “This is often because text is very lossy. Sometimes I wish if I talk to the agent, I would. It should be multi model so it also understands my emotions.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Yeah, and anything that creates emotion and feelings is good. So maybe. Maybe even the crypto people are good because they definitely created emotions. I don't know if I should go that far.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “I mean, I could have fought really nice hotels. Last time I was in San Francisco, I did the first time the OG Airbnb experience and just booked a room. Most of it because I thought, okay, either I'm out or I'm sleeping. I don't like where all the hotels are. And I wanted a different experience. I think, isn't life all about experiences? Like if you tailor your life towards, I want to have experiences, it reduces the need for it needs to be good or bad. Like people only want good experiences, that's not going to work. But if you optimize for experiences. It's good, amazing if it's bad, amazing. I learned something. I saw something. I wanted to experience that. And it was amazing. This queer D chain there, and I showed her how to make music with cloud code. I mean, like immediately bonded and I had a great time.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “And I built my company, money was never the driving force. It felt more like an affirmation that I did something right. And having money solves a lot of problems. I think there's diminishing returns the more you have. Like a cheeseburger, it's a cheeseburger. And I think if you go too far Into, oh, I do private chat and I only travel luxury. You disconnect with society I don't need it quite a lot. I have a foundation for. Helping people that weren't so”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “Maybe advice on how to approach life if you think that, oh, yeah, work really hard and then I retire. I don't recommend that The idea of, oh, yeah, just enjoy life now. Maybe it's appeating, but. No, I enjoy life Most ever enjoyed life because if you wake up in the morning and you have nothing to look forward to, you have no real challenge. That gets very boring very fast. And then when you're bored, you're going to look for other places how to stimulate yourself. And then maybe that's Drugs But that eventually also get boring and you look for more. And that will lead you down a very dark path.”

    2026-02-12 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #491 – OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet – Peter Steinberger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source