Comment by mmaunder

10 days ago

Good move. OpenClaw is alpha quality, very dangerous, super useful and super fun - which amplifies the danger. It’s a disaster waiting to happen and a massive risk for a solo dev to take on. So best to trade it for a killer job offer and transfer all that risk.

To get a sense of what this guy was going through listen to the first 30 mins of Lex’s recent interview with him. The cybersquatting and token/crypto bullshit he had to deal with is impressive.

20 comments

mmaunder

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bananaboy  10 days ago

He's not really trading anything though. He was hired by OpenAI. OpenClaw will remain free and open source (it's the first line of his blog post). He says that OpenAI will allow him to work on it and already sponsors it so maybe that means he'll have time to improve it, I guess.

  • esskay  9 days ago

    Given he's moving to SF to work in their office I presume part of it is he'll be working in-house on their commercial replacement, and will continue to cover costs on the OSS version which he's free to work on. His recent posts make it clear they've got plans for their own stuff to replace it.

  • brandensilva  9 days ago

    Right, he indicated he's losing $10-20k a month on OpenClaw. Might as well let OpenAI absorb those losses and join the rocket ship.

    The guy is a multi millionaire from selling his old software so I'm doubtful it is about the money for him at this point as much as it is the experience working with this tech on another level.

rolymath  9 days ago

> Listen to... Lex

People can do that? I always assumed Lex was a CIA psyop to experiment with the ability to make people sleep on demand.

  • beernet  9 days ago

    While that might take it a little too far, Lex surely is a dangerous individual. On various occasions did he sympathize with the war and terror that Russia is doing in Ukraine. I do not click on any of his content because I will not support these (and a few other questionable, to say the least) views of his. Also his image of an MIT researcher is hilarious.

    • parineum  9 days ago

      > On various occasions did he sympathize with the war and terror that Russia is doing in Ukraine.

      I'm not a devotee of his but I've listened to a few of his podcasts when I like the guest. I have an idea of how someone would come away with your impression given lex's interview style but I'd be pretty surprised if anything he said would, to me, fit your impression.

      That said, I'd like an example if you have something specific to point to that might change my mind or if it's just a general takeaway you've gotten from a corpus of interviews on the topic (which would be totally valid but wouldn't change my mind).

      3 replies →

  • nsvd2  9 days ago

    I'm a big fan of his. I particularly enjoy his long technical interviews like the one he did with Peter.

Traster  9 days ago

It really is quite funny though isn't it. Yes, it's a fucking hand grenade that will blow up at any moment. It's perfect for a one man band startup. Because there's massive upside and at the end of the day if it blows up he's just back to sqaure one, what did you expect from a 1 man band.

But wait. Here he comes. Hero of the hour. Sam Altman.

Let's take that wildly dangerous, lightly thought through product, and give it the backing of the leading AI lab. Let's take all that pending liability and slap it straight onto the largest private company in AI.

  • whazor  9 days ago

    OpenClaw is more like an art project than a consumer product. It has shown clear consumer product demand. The next step is making it a safer consumer product.

    • jascha_eng  9 days ago

      > OpenClaw is more like an art project than a consumer product

      I think this is true for a lot of vibe coded applications. Never thought about calling it an art project but it hits home.