Defunct startup data sales for AI training

MIT Technology Review reports that firms handling startup shutdowns now arrange sales of code and workplace records to buyers that include AI labs and companies building training environments. Its October 13 English investigation names SimpleClosure and Sunset as brokers in the market. The report describes a potential use for real workplace exchanges in agent training, while noting that no company has published a comparison showing how much such data improves model performance. It also raises consent and privacy questions for employees whose messages and documents may be part of an archive. The market’s scale and the safeguards described by participants are reported claims, not independently established outcomes for every sale.