OpenClaw creator’s advice to AI builders is to be more playful and allow yourself time to improve

Source: TechCrunch

Peter Steinberger, the creator of the viral AI agent OpenClaw, who has since joined OpenAI, shares advice for anyone experimenting with AI technology, including AI agents. From his own experience, the best way to build today is to explore, be playful, and not expect to be an expert right away.

“I wish I could say that I had the unified plan in the beginning, but a lot of it was just exploration,” Steinberger said. “I wanted things, and those things didn’t exist, and…let’s say, I prompted them into existence.”

Steinberger discussed his journey on the first episode of the company’s new Builders Unscripted podcast, hosted by OpenAI’s Head of Developer Experience, Romain Huet (watch here). He described the early days of OpenClaw and how he started without a concrete plan.

He initially built a tool that would integrate with WhatsApp, then set it aside, assuming AI labs would soon create something similar.

“I just experimented a lot. My mission was, kind of like, to have fun and inspire people,” he noted. By last November, however, no AI labs had built what he needed, prompting him to create the first prototype of what is now OpenClaw.

The breakthrough came during a weekend trip to Marrakesh, where limited internet made WhatsApp indispensable.

“Where it really clicked was where I was at this weekend trip in Marrakesh, and I found myself using it way more because it was so convenient…there was no really good internet. [But] WhatsApp just works everywhere,” he said.

The tool let him find restaurants, look up information on his computer, send texts to friends, and more. As he played with the technology, Steinberger realized how capable modern AI models have become at problem‑solving—much like human coders.

“Now they can just, like, actually come up with the solutions themselves, even though you never programmed them at all,” he noted.

He emphasizes that workflow improvements take time, so developers shouldn’t give up.

“There are people that…write software in the old way, and the old way is going to go away,” he pointed out. Some try “vibe‑coding” but are disappointed.

“I think vibe‑coding is a slur,” Steinberger said, suggesting the term oversimplifies the process. “They try AI, but they don’t understand that it’s a skill.” He likened learning to code with AI to learning guitar:

“You’re not going to be good at guitar on the first day.”

His recommendation is to adopt a playful mindset. When he writes a prompt, he has an intuition about how long it should take; if it takes longer, he reflects on what went wrong and adapts.

“My… advice always is, approach it in a playful way. Build something that you always wanted to build. If you’re at least a little bit of a builder, there has to be something on the back of your mind that you want to build. Like, just play.”

This experimental, fun‑first attitude is crucial, especially as many worry about AI displacing jobs.

“If your identity is: I want to create things. I want to solve problems. If you’re high‑agency, if you’re smart, you will be in more demand than ever,” Steinberger said.