OpenClaw's Peter Steinberger on why he rejected Mark Zuckerberg's job offer and took Sam Altman's with relatively less money; says …

OpenClaw library maintainer Peter Steinberger has recently announced that he has joined the company behind popular chatbot ChatGPT, OpenAI. Steinberger has explained that he decided to accept an offer from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over another offer from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He has decided to join OpenAI despite the fact that the other offer was reportedly more lucrative. The OpenClaw developer has explained that his decision was not influenced by financial considerations but by his alignment with the product vision and the overall goal of developing accessible AI agents.


Earlier this week, Altman announced that Steinberger and his OpenClaw project would join OpenAI and “live in a foundation as an open source project that OpenAI will continue to support.” OpenClaw, an autonomous system that enables users to build agents capable of controlling desktop and personal applications, is expected to become integrated into OpenAI’s broader product roadmap. Altman said, “We expect this will quickly become core to our product offerings.”

Why OpenClaw developer Peter Steinberger chose OpenAI over Meta

Speaking on the Lex Fridman podcast, Steinberger said that after his recent meeting with "the major labs" in San Francisco, he had two serious offers on the table: one from Meta and another from OpenAI. However, he chose OpenAI, and his reasoning reveals as much about his values as it does about the two companies.


His first call with Mark Zuckerberg turned into a 10-minute debate about Claude Code versus Codex. Zuckerberg reportedly called him "eccentric, but brilliant." Meta brought technical muscle to the table, with Steinberger hinting at Cerebras-level inference speeds under NDA. Yet none of that proved decisive.


Steinberger said that three things shaped his choice. First, Steinberger is a committed Codex believer, as he called himself "the biggest Codex advertisement show that's unpaid", and joining OpenAI meant doubling down on that bet.


Secondly, OpenAI said it is committed to keeping OpenClaw open source. Altman explicitly said it would "live in a foundation," a guarantee Meta's offer apparently did not include.


Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, OpenAI was a better fit for OpenClaw’s mission. Steinberger said that his goal is to "build an agent that even my mum can use," and OpenAI's reach through ChatGPT offered a path to that at scale.


However, he noted that money was not part of the calculation.“I don't do this for the money. I don't give a f**k," he said on the Lex Fridman podcast.


On his blog, Steinberger wrote, "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."


Having already exited PSPDFKit for over $100 million, spent three years away from the industry, and worked through 43 side projects, Steinberger returned to building because the craft itself drives him, not the outcome, he noted.


Regarding OpenAI’s plans for OpenClaw, Altman said, “We expect this will quickly become core to our product offerings,” indicating a defined product direction rather than an exploratory effort.


Reflecting on his decision, Steinberger wrote on his blog, “The more I talked with the people there, the clearer it became that we both share the same vision.”