Hacker News · Feb 15, 2026 · Collected from RSS
Article URL: https://steipete.me/posts/2026/openclaw Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47028013 Points: 333 # Comments: 240
tl;dr: I’m joining OpenAI to work on bringing agents to everyone. OpenClaw will move to a foundation and stay open and independent. The last month was a whirlwind, never would I have expected that my playground project would create such waves. The internet got weird again, and it’s been incredibly fun to see how my work inspired so many people around the world. There’s an endless array of possibilities that opened up for me, countless people trying to push me into various directions, giving me advice, asking how they can invest or what I will do. Saying it’s overwhelming is an understatement. When I started exploring AI, my goal was to have fun and inspire people. And here we are, the lobster is taking over the world. My next mission is to build an agent that even my mum can use. That’ll need a much broader change, a lot more thought on how to do it safely, and access to the very latest models and research. Yes, I could totally see how OpenClaw could become a huge company. And no, it’s not really exciting for me. I’m a builder at heart. I did the whole creating-a-company game already, poured 13 years of my life into it and learned a lot. What I want is to change the world, not build a large company and teaming up with OpenAI is the fastest way to bring this to everyone. I spent last week in San Francisco talking with the major labs, getting access to people and unreleased research, and it’s been inspiring on all fronts. I want to thank all the folks I talked to this week and am thankful for the opportunities. It’s always been important to me that OpenClaw stays open source and given the freedom to flourish. Ultimately, I felt OpenAI was the best place to continue pushing on my vision and expand its reach. The more I talked with the people there, the clearer it became that we both share the same vision. The community around OpenClaw is something magical and OpenAI has made strong commitments to enable me to dedicate my time to it and already sponsors the project. To get this into a proper structure I’m working on making it a foundation. It will stay a place for thinkers, hackers and people that want a way to own their data, with the goal of supporting even more models and companies. Personally I’m super excited to join OpenAI, be part of the frontier of AI research and development, and continue building with all of you. The claw is the law.