Executive Summary
Peter Steinberger is a distinguished Austrian software engineer and serial entrepreneur whose career exemplifies the complete trajectory from deep technical expertise to commercial success, and then to embracing emerging technologies to lead innovation once again.
He first established himself as a leader in the iOS and software development community by founding PSPDFKit, a bootstrapped company that achieved massive commercial success in the document processing space. After a successful exit in 2021, he briefly "retired," but quickly rediscovered his passion in the AI wave. In 2025, he founded Amantus Machina and launched the revolutionary open-source personal AI assistant project Moltbot, once again becoming a focal point of the tech industry.
Background & Education
Peter Steinberger was born in Austria. His technical career began at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), where he majored in Computer and Information Science from 2004 to 2010.
During his time at university, he demonstrated keen interest and professional capability in emerging mobile technologies, particularly the Apple ecosystem. He not only actively participated in development but also championed the establishment of the university's first Mac/iOS development course, serving as a course instructor from 2008 to 2012, training one of Austria's earliest generations of mobile developers.
Early Leadership: Before even graduating, Peter was already shaping the future of mobile development education in Austria, recognizing the potential of iOS development when the iPhone was just a year old.
The First Summit: PSPDFKit (2011-2021)
Steinberger's first entrepreneurial success stemmed from his keen insight into market needs as an excellent engineer. While solving PDF display and editing pain points in iOS applications for clients, he discovered a massive market opportunity.
Founding & Growth
PSPDFKit was initially launched in 2011 as a side project, aiming to provide iOS developers with a powerful PDF document processing SDK. The project was profitable almost from day one.
After a brief stint working in the US, Steinberger discovered that PSPDFKit's revenue had exceeded his salary at the American startup. He decisively quit his job and returned to Austria to fully commit to his own venture.
Over the next decade, PSPDFKit achieved organic growth entirely through its own profitability, without accepting any external venture capital, developing into a successful enterprise with approximately 40 globally distributed employees.
Business Model & Industry Impact
PSPDFKit's core business was providing SDKs and APIs to enterprises and developers, enabling them to seamlessly integrate powerful document processing capabilities—such as viewing, editing, annotation, electronic signatures, and collaboration—into their applications.
This model made PSPDFKit an early exemplar in the embedded services space. Its client roster reads like a who's who of tech giants:
- Apple - The company that inspired the platform
- Adobe - The creators of PDF itself
- Dropbox - Cloud storage pioneer
- IBM - Enterprise technology leader
- SAP - Enterprise software giant
- Volkswagen - Global automotive leader
The Successful Exit
In October 2021, PSPDFKit reached an important milestone in its history. The renowned global software investment firm Insight Partners made a strategic investment of 100 million euros (approximately $116 million USD).
This was the company's first external financing. Through this transaction, Peter Steinberger sold most of his shares, achieved financial freedom, and stepped down from full-time management, completing his transformation from technical founder to successful entrepreneur.
"Building PSPDFKit taught me that you can create something meaningful without following the traditional Silicon Valley playbook. Sometimes the best path is the one you forge yourself."
PSPDFKit Timeline
The Second Rise: AI Era & Moltbot (2025-Present)
After his successful exit, Steinberger experienced a period he describes as a "meaning crisis." However, the explosive development of AI technology reignited his passion for creation. In June 2025, he officially announced his "comeback" on his personal blog, opening the second chapter of his career.
Birth of Amantus Machina
On June 14, 2025, Peter Steinberger registered his new company Amantus Machina GmbH in Vienna, Austria. The Latin name means "Lover of Machines," and its vision is to develop next-generation hyper-personalized, local-first AI agents that can truly understand and help users as AI companions.
Moltbot: Redefining Personal AI Assistants
Amantus Machina's flagship product is Moltbot, an open-source, self-hosted personal AI assistant project. The project went viral in the developer community and social media shortly after its launch in early 2026, hailed as "what Siri should have been."
Moltbot's core innovations address several major pain points of traditional cloud-based AI assistants:
Proactive Engagement: It no longer passively waits for commands but can proactively initiate notifications and actions, such as sending morning briefings and reminding about urgent emails—like a true personal secretary.
True Memory: By storing Markdown diary files locally, Moltbot can permanently remember user preferences and conversation history across sessions and platforms, providing a highly personalized experience.
Full Computer Access: It has the ability to execute operations directly on the user's operating system, including running terminal commands, reading and writing files, controlling browsers, and integrating with various messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram through a unified gateway.
The project quickly accumulated nearly 30,000 GitHub stars and attracted over 50 contributors, fully demonstrating the forward-thinking nature of its technical philosophy and community influence.
Technical Philosophy & Workflow Evolution
Peter Steinberger's work approach has undergone a fundamental transformation with the advent of the AI era. In his 2025 blog series, he elaborated on his new workflow: "Shipping at Inference-Speed."
His core philosophy is to treat AI agents as core productivity tools, while he himself plays the role of "guide." He divides work among different models based on their strengths (such as using Gemini for code understanding and Claude Code for code implementation), and created the "Two-Context Technique" to create "bulletproof" Software Design Documents (SDDs).
His programming philosophy is pragmatism and efficiency above all—streamlining the toolset, building custom CLI infrastructure, and providing AI agents with the optimal execution environment to maximize productivity.
Community Contributions & Thought Leadership
Beyond commercial success, Steinberger is also an active open-source contributor and thought leader.
Open Source Projects
During the PSPDFKit era, he created Aspects and other popular iOS open-source libraries, with Aspects garnering over 10,000 GitHub stars. After his transition, he made all new projects including Moltbot completely open-source, adhering to the philosophy of "open-sourcing everything."
Public Speaking & Writing
His personal blog (steipete.me) and Twitter/X account (@steipete) are important platforms for sharing technical insights and personal reflections.
His speaking topics have evolved from sharing entrepreneurial experiences ("What Nobody Tells You When Selling Your Business") to evangelizing how AI is transforming software development ("You Can Just Do Things: How AI Is Transforming Software Development") at multiple global tech conferences including Swift Connection 2025 and NSSpain 2025.
Conclusion
Peter Steinberger's career is a model for technical entrepreneurs. He demonstrated how to create a successful bootstrapped enterprise through deep technical accumulation and precise market insight.
More importantly, after reaching the traditional pinnacle of success, he didn't rest on his laurels. Instead, he bravely plunged into AI—the most transformative technological wave—and through open-source projects like Moltbot, once again stands at the forefront of technological innovation.
His story inspires countless developers: Master your craft, identify pain points, create boldly, and continuously embrace change.