The lobster is loose, and it’s not going back: Peter Steinberger on building OpenClaw at TED 2026

A decade after founding a bootstrapped startup, OpenClaw’s Peter Steinberger took the TED 2026 stage on Saturday to share the journey of founding the most viral AI agent recently.

Steinberger said the release of OpenClaw followed a prolonged period of uncertainty marked by travel and even relocation to two countries. That phase ultimately set the stage for a breakthrough in early 2025, when he began experimenting with coding agents. “For three years, nothing clicked. No reason to be out of bed,” he said.