OpenClaw Origin Story
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Shaan tells the remarkable journey of Pete, the Austrian developer behind OpenClaw.
Pete built a PDF side project called PSPDFKit that became the gold standard for developers, used by Apple, Box, and DocuSign. He bootstrapped it and sold a majority stake for around $100 million. But when he tried to retire early, he discovered "golf sucks" and had an existential crisis.
Deciding to keep building, Pete created 40-50 open source projects. Then he got the idea to build "Jarvis from the movies" - an AI assistant that could actually do things, not just talk. The problem with existing AI tools was they couldn't access your apps or accounts.
Pete's solution: "Forget it, I'm gonna give it god mode." He built it to run locally on his computer with full access. Initially called "Claude Bot," Anthropic forced him to change the name (Shaan jokes they said "change your name if you wanna ever see your mother again"). After changing it twice, it became OpenClaw.
OpenClaw became one of the fastest-growing GitHub projects ever, Twitter went nuts, it started a revolution, and Mac Mini prices skyrocketed as people bought them to run it. Recently, OpenAI acquired Pete for an undisclosed sum that people speculate could be massive - possibly a "one person billion dollar acquihire."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.