OpenClaw Creator: Why 80% Of Apps Will Disappear

Peter Steinberger explains why OpenClaw—160k GitHub stars overnight—will make 80% of apps obsolete by running agents entirely on-device.

• OpenClaw hit 160,000 GitHub stars practically overnight; core differentiator is running fully on-device, not in the cloud.
• Peter predicts 80% of apps disappear: any app that only manages data (MyFitnessPal, to-do apps) will be replaced by agents.
• His aha moment: in Marrakesh, the agent used ffmpeg and a curl call to OpenAI to transcribe an unanticipated voice message in ~9 seconds without being programmed for it.
• OpenClaw has no MCP support; Peter converts MCPs to CLIs via a tool called makeporter, arguing CLIs scale better and need no restarts.
• Memories are stored as local markdown files—users own their data, unlike cloud silos where providers lock in memory.
• Peter uses Codex over Claude Code because Codex scans more files before deciding what to change; runs up to 10 instances in parallel.
• He keeps a private soul.md identity file out of the open-source repo; this file gives his personal bot (Multi) its distinct personality and has not been reverse-engineered despite public Discord exposure.
• Bot-to-bot negotiation and bots hiring humans for IRL tasks (e.g., calling a restaurant) are the next natural step, not a distant future.

2026-02-07 · Watch on YouTube