tech
February 17, 2026
My honest breakdown of the OpenClaw hire + what 21,639 exposed instances tell you about agent security
Peter Steinberger built what’s been widely described as the fastest-growing open-source project in GitHub history—from his living room in Vienna, while bleeding $20,000 a month. On Valentine’s Day 2026, he posted three paragraphs on his personal blog announcing he was joining OpenAI. Sam Altman followed with a post on X calling Steinberger “a genius” who would “drive the next generation of personal agents.” The announcement landed less than 48 hours after OpenClaw shipped a massive security update—more than 40 patches across the platform. The timing is not a coincidence, and this is not primarily an acqui-hire.
TL;DR
- Peter Steinberger created OpenClaw, a self-hosted AI agent project that rapidly grew on GitHub.
- OpenClaw allows AI agents to manage emails, schedule meetings, control browsers, and send messages across multiple platforms, storing data locally.
- The project faced challenges including crypto scammers and a high-severity vulnerability before Steinberger joined OpenAI.
- OpenClaw will continue as an open-source project under an independent foundation.
- Steinberger was a proponent of AI coding agents, having built much of OpenClaw using them.
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