OpenClaw and the Architecture Nobody Noticed

This week, Sam Altman announced that Peter Steinberger, creator of OpenClaw, was joining OpenAI. The open-source project would move to an independent foundation. Meta had also bid. Both reportedly offered billions. Since then, the takes have been predictable. "The chatbot era is over." "Anthropic fumbled by sending a cease-and-desist instead of an acquisition offer." "OpenAI is pivoting to agents." All of these are true, and none of them are particularly interesting. The interesting question is