Gergely Orosz: What if you could merge 600 commits on a single day and none of it was slopp? This is what today's guest, Peter Stainberger, the creator of Claudebot, claims he's doing. Peter is a standout developer who built PSP PDF kit, the PDF framework used on more than 1 billion devices. Then he burned out, sold his shares, and disappeared from tech for 3 years. This year, he came back and how he builds and what he's doing now looks nothing like traditional software development. In today's episode, we cover why he no longer reads most of the code he ships, and why that's not as crazy as it sounds. How he is building Clawbot, his wildly popular personal assistant project, which feels like the future of Siri, the closing the loop principle that separates effective AI assistant coding from frustrating vibe coding. Why he says code reviews are dead and PR should be called prompt requests, and many more. If you're interested in how the software engine workflow could change in the coming years thanks to AI, this episode is for you. This episode is presented by Statsig... Right, Pete, welcome to the podcast.

Peter Steinberger: Thanks for having me, Gay.

Gergely Orosz: It is awesome to meet you in in person.

Peter Steinberger: Yeah, and I almost messed it up.

Gergely Orosz: Yeah. What what what what happened? You lost track of time. Does that happen often? And how how so?

Peter Steinberger: Um, not usually. Not usually. Um, this is an interesting time for me cuz I cuz my latest project is is blowing up.

Gergely Orosz: Cloud, right?

Peter Steinberger: Clawbot. Yeah,

Gergely Orosz: Cloudbot.

Peter Steinberger: I'm struggling a bit to get enough sleep, but it's it's it's interesting. I never I never had a community blowing up so fast and it's just incredibly fun to work with.

Gergely Orosz: So, before we we get into Clubbot and all the fun stuff you're doing, I wanted to rewind all the way way back. You create a PSPDF kit which is used I think on more than 1 billion devices users. If if you see a PDF render you probably see that. But even before that how did you get into tech? Oh my god. How did you get into tech?

Peter Steinberger: So I'm from rural Austria. Um always more being the introvert. So eventually I we always had like summer guests and one of them one of them was a was a computer nerd and then I kind of got hooked with with like the machine he had and begged my mom to buy me one and ever since then I this was in high school or so.

Gergely Orosz: I guess I was 14.

Peter Steinberger: Yeah. And ever since I started tinkering, like I can remember the earliest thing was like I stole an old DOS game from my school and then wrote a copy protection for the floppy disc so I could sell it. It took like 2 minutes to load. I was just always tinkering. Also playing a lot of computer games of course, but like building stuff almost feels like playing a computer game. Like definitely right now it feels better than Factorio.

Peter Steinberger: Oh, when I started out, I I I I read like the equivalent of bash scripts for Windows and then I did like websites. So, I guess a little bit of JavaScript, uh, even though I had no clue what I was doing. And then the actual first language where I I had to learn how to build things is when I started university. And I never met my dad. And I come from a from a poor family. So, I always had to work. like I had to had to finance my own studies, right? So when other people were were having holiday, I just worked full-time at a company.

Gergely Orosz: so so you you how did you stumble into both iOS and where did the idea from PSPDF come from?

Peter Steinberger: Not even yeah the first one the first one wasn't even available in in in Austria. That's true. Yeah. A little time goes went on and I was at university and a friend showed me the iPhone and I I think I I touched it for a minute and then immediately bought one like like this like it it clicked when I felt it and and to me this was like a holy f moment cuz it was just like so different and so much better. So I got I got one. I was still not thinking about building for it, you know. That was that was

Gergely Orosz: when was this 2009 10 something like that.

Peter Steinberger: Yeah. Yeah. And then I I used their browser. I I can see the story. I was I was literally driving in the subway. Mhm. And by the time I was using a gay dating app and this was iPhone OS 2.

Peter Steinberger: So So I I long time ago I typed this long message. I pressed send and we were just going into a tunnel and the JavaScript disabled the send button and then an error message came but there was no copy paste. There was no screenshot. So I was just like and I couldn't scroll anymore because like scrolling was disabled. So like this long message was like a little bit emotional was gone and I was so mad. I was so mad. I'm like what the hell? I went home and I downloaded Xcode. That's that's where that's where the window came and I was like where is the ID?

Peter Steinberger: So it was like like I was like this is unacceptable. I basically hacked the website. I used regular expressions to like download uh to parse the HTML which is like totally not something you should do and I built an app and I used I used iPhone OS3 beta with like core data in beta regaxit light. I used a hacked version of GCC that backported the blocks compiler so I could use blocks in iPhone OS3. It took me quite a while until anything worked because like I had no idea what I was doing and I was like using all kind of like beta tech but eventually I I got it to work and I I I wrote that company was like hey I'm making an app. What do you think about it? Got no response of course. So I was like let's just put it in the app store.

Gergely Orosz: And this was for the dating app right?

Peter Steinberger: Yeah.

Gergely Orosz: So you just like you know you looked at you saw their APIs you could just like easily like build a client on top

Peter Steinberger: API. It was HTML.

Gergely Orosz: Oh. So, so you kind of parse the HTML, kind of turn it into your own, you know, like you use it as an API. Oh, clever.

Peter Steinberger: I mean, this was back in the day where no one thought this this would happen, but I made I put it in the app store. I charged five bucks for it and I made like 10k in the first month. And I had no clue what I was doing.

Peter Steinberger: And then I I went to the Nokia development days. This is all like stone age by now. My god. And then someone came up to me and said, "Yeah, they built this app somewhere in Eastern Europe and it works but it crashes sometimes and it was like was like a magazine viewer, right? This was back when the iPad just came out and Steve Jobs hit that like this is the savior. So everybody was building magazine apps and I was like that sounds like an interesting short-term gig. And I I was like okay I I'll I'll I'll help you out. And I opened the app and it was like oh the worst code I've ever seen in my life. It was literally one file with like thousands of lines of Objective C.

Peter Steinberger: Yes. Where they used windows as tabs. I I didn't know this worked. I was surprised this worked at all, but it felt like a a house of cards. And I I tried to I tried to surgically fix things, but like as soon as you would touch something, something else would break. Um so I got it I got it somewhat stabilized and I told him like, "Look, this is this is like madness. Um I'm going to rewite this for you." Yeah. But it took half a year. I'm going to do it in in a month. Well, it took me two months. Um, I wasn't that far off and and then here I was working on a on a PDF viewer. You know, on every technical problem, the domain is is I wouldn't say like completely unimportant, but you can always find interesting problems in every domain.

Peter Steinberger: And there was a lot of interesting problems because you had a C call that would render a PDF that would maybe take 30 megabytes, but the whole system had 64 megabytes. So if you're not very smart and like very careful what you do in the background and when the OS would just kill you. I got really fixated at like making it good like when the rotation is like that the page would like animate and so so you know I I like I like those details. I spent way too much time on that. That's why I took two months instead of one. But the end result was it's good.

Peter Steinberger: Um and then I I I worked with them for a while and then a friend texted me up. He's like, "Yeah, I'm working on this magazine app and it's really hard." I'm like, "Yeah, no way it's hard. I know." Oh, like I did it. And and he was like, "Can you can you can you get me the code?" I'm like, "Sure." So, I sold him like I extracted the the part that was PDF from from this magazine app. And I I made sure I made sure like the other person was okay. And then I sold him that. I was like, "Well, if he's interested in that, why let's not try to sell it to other people." I used a a WordPress template and mutilated it to run on GitHub pages and then and then when you did the the fast lane flow at the end you got a Dropbox link to my personal Dropbox with a source code sip and I put this on one afternoon and I I tweeted it and and then in that week three people bought it and it was like I guess 200 bucks but back then and for me this was like amazing

Peter Steinberger: And not only I got like three people who just bought it and like 10 emails who comp 10 people who complained about uh because they wanted it but it didn't have the features they wanted. You know, it's like I got nerd sniped. I was like, "Oh, I didn't have text selection." Oh, how hard can it be? 3 months later. Oh, yeah. It's really hard. Text selection in a PDF specifically.

Gergely Orosz: So, you know, from from the outside, it seems you sold your shares, you made enough money to not have to work again, should you not choose. And for a lot of people, like, you know, people who are starting out their business or or one day want to start a business, this sounds like the absolute dream. And then what I noticed is from the outside again on your blog, the blog post completely stopped for several years. What what did you do uh in in this time uh and and what what what did you learn in this time, you know, before you came back to to where we are now?

Peter Steinberger: I needed a lot of time to decompress. I catched up a lot on the things I thought I missed. I a lot. Um there were months where I didn't even turn on my computer. And for a while I was I just didn't had this feeling of like what should I do now? Like like I definitely was like why border? You know, you're not you're not supposed to to retire so early or like have so much have such a good exit that you never have to work again. That messed with my mind quite a bit. That that was some that was some hard years. And then in April I was like I there was this idea that I had years ago and even a side project that I started I was like oh yeah I want to I want to continue on that and then after after after more than 3 years I just sat back to my computer and and started hacking again.

Gergely Orosz: so clock was your first you you come back after like a you know hiatus and you immediately turned on clock code and you missed everything else before.

Peter Steinberger: I remember I took this big messy site project that I built and I have this browser extension where that that converts a GitHub repository into one big markdown that was like a 1.3 megabyte markdown file and I dragged it into into Google's CI studio with Geminina 2.5 or two to something and I typed write me a spec and it generated those 400 lines of spec And I dragged this back into cloud code and I was like build and then I continue continue continue and while I was like working on other stuff, you know, um and eventually told me like it's 100% production ready and I started it and it crashed.

Peter Steinberger: Then I had then I added added an MCP so it could use the browser. I think the player with MCP was already there and it looped a few more hours and then I had a I had a Twitter login page and it it did something. I It was not great, but it did something. And to me to me this was my holy [ __ ] mind-blowing moment.

Gergely Orosz: Right now jumping forward, what is your workflow like? Like like when you're working on on cloud bot, are you using a terminal, multiple terminals, which which tools and and how are you you know like you said you're not you're kind of like not reviewing the the code, but you're still thinking about architecture. Like what does your average day look like in terms of tooling?

Peter Steinberger: If you're very much cloud code build you have to forget quite a lot of the the silliness that the things that you have to do to create good output with cloud code I mean I also met that team and and they created a whole new category. Like cloud code is is is a category defining product and it is amazing for general purpose computer work and it is is really good for coding and I I I I still use it almost every day. But for writing code in complex applications, Codex is just so much better because it it it takes 10 times longer. um Claude would read three files and then be confident enough to just like create code and then you really have to steer it and push it so it reads more code so it gets it sees a bigger picture of your codebase so that it it it weaves in new features better and Codex will just like be silent and just read files for 10 minutes and if you if you only work on one terminal I completely understand how you how you find this unbearable But I rather have something where it's also you don't tell it what to do.

Peter Steinberger: You know this is this is also something that people don't get like I have a conversation with the model. It's like oh let's look at this what what what what options do we have for this structure? Did you consider this feature? It's like because every every session is like the model starts from having no understanding about your product and you have and and sometimes you have to just give it a little bit of pointers. What about this and this? So it explores different directions and you don't need plan mode like I'm just having a conversation until I say build this it will not build this. There's some trigger words because it it is they all are a little trigger hungry but as soon as I say let's discuss or give me options they will not build things until I say build.

Gergely Orosz: It sounds a little bit like you're almost, you know, for years back this this totally came got out of style. But there was this idea that you would have the architect with a capital A

Peter Steinberger: Well, I wouldn't say architecture. I I like the word builder.

Gergely Orosz: Builder. Yeah.

Peter Steinberger: And and and I think also that's there's a few categories that I see for people that are highly successful using using AI and people who really struggle. I care more about the outcome, the product. I very much care about how it feels and everything, but how the plumbing works underneath. I care structurally, but you know, not to the not the biggest detail. And then there are people who really love to to code on hard problems like think about algorithms don't really like the I'm building a product with like all the marketing all the they they more like they like to solve hard problems and those are the people who really struggle and and and often reject AI or get really sad because that's exactly the job where that AI does like it solves the hard problems.

Gergely Orosz: And closing the loop you mean just have a way to to have have the agent be able to validate its work?

Peter Steinberger: Yeah, that's why that's the whole reason why why those models that we currently have are so good at coding. But like sometimes mediocre good at writing creative because there's no easy way to validate right but code I can compile I can lint I can execute I can verify the output if you design it the right way you have a perfect loop like even now even now for for websites I built the core in a way that can be run via a CLI so it's like I have this I have this perfect uh execution loop because the the browser loop is insanely slow you want something that that loops fast.

Peter Steinberger: Surprise actually using aentic coding makes you a better coder because you have to have to think harder about your your your architecture so that it's easier verifiable because verifying is the way how to make things good.

Gergely Orosz: Now imagine that you would hire one or two people to make it a small team. How do you think in this world and you keep want to keep doing what you're doing? How do you think things like code review CI CD would change?

Peter Steinberger: I don't I don't I don't care much about CI.

Gergely Orosz: Why why not? you used to care a lot like a PSPDF kid. You used to care a lot, right?

Peter Steinberger: And and I still do this. There's value, but I I have local CI. I'm I'm a little bit I'm a little bit of DAH now that because because the agent runs the test, right? Yeah. And it's just way faster. I don't I want to push on the on on the on the back on the P and then wait for 10 minutes to wait for for CI because you waited 10 minutes on the agent already. If if the tests pass locally, we merge

Peter Steinberger: everything has to be resold you know pull requests uh I see them more as prompt requests Now, like I don't I I somebody opens a pull request, I don't I lot I do say thanks and I think about the feature and then with my agent we start off with the PR and then I'll design the feature as I see fit. The agent rarely reuses like maybe I reuse some code but it's more like it gives the agent a good understanding of what the goal is and sometimes it's very useful because it's it's tricky bucks, right? But I I basically rewrite every pull request and and and v it in also also a lot of people let's just say the overall code quality of of PRs went down a lot because people vibe code and and building a successful feature still needs a lot of a lot of understanding of your overall design and if you if you cannot do that you will have a harder time steering your agent and the output will be bad.

Peter Steinberger: even you know even when I get a PR I'm actually more interested in the prompts than in the code I I ask people to please add the prompts and some do and I I read the prompts more than I read the code because to me this is this is a way higher signal of like how did you get to the solution what did you actually ask how much steering was involved then the actual out to me this gives me more idea about the output I don't have to read the code or like if someone wants a feature I ask for a prompt request like write it up really well because then I can just point my agent to the issue and it will build it so because because the the work is the thinking about how it should work and what the details are and if someone else does it for me I can literally say build and it will work