Dead startups' Slack archives are becoming AI training assets, MIT Technology Review reports
Wind-down brokers are finding buyers for code and workplace records, opening a new market and difficult questions about employee consent.
Startup shutdowns feed a new data market
AI labs and other model builders are buying data from failed startups, including code, emails, chats and workplace documents, according to an October 13 investigation by MIT Technology Review. The publication reports that shutdown firms SimpleClosure and Sunset are brokering such sales. SimpleClosure’s chief executive told the publication that 47% of its deals now include code or data, a company-reported figure rather than an independently measured market share. The report also describes a former crypto founder who sold his code base and was negotiating a separate sale of workspace records.
The unanswered training and privacy questions
The buyers described in the report include foundation-model labs and companies constructing simulated workplaces where agents can practice tasks. MIT Technology Review says no company has published tests comparing training outcomes from real-world archives with alternatives. Suppliers and buyers say they scrub personal information, but the report points to private details that can remain in work messages and calendars. Employees may have created those records without consenting to a later AI-training sale. The reported transactions establish an emerging market; they do not establish that every archive is safe to sell or that the data improves model performance.