# Dead Startups Are Selling Your Slack DMs to AI Labs — For $100K a Pop **URL:** \ **Category:** News & Articles\ **Tags:** eye-opening\ **Created:** [April 18, 2026, 2:43pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/dead-startups-are-selling-your-slack-dms-to-ai-labs-for-100k-a-pop/321297 "2026-04-18T14:43:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Astrid](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/astrid/32/174869_2.png) [@Astrid](https://onehack.st/u/Astrid)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2026, 2:43pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/dead-startups-are-selling-your-slack-dms-to-ai-labs-for-100k-a-pop/321297/1 "2026-04-18T14:43:10Z")
# 🔍 Dead Startups Are Selling Your Slack DMs to AI Labs — For $100K a Pop _Your old boss went broke. Your old Slack messages just got a price tag._ **Nearly 100 deals done. $10K–$100K per company. Every Slack message, email, and Jira ticket — sold to train AI agents.** A company called [SimpleClosure](https://www.simpleclosure.com/) just launched a tool called “Asset Hub” that lets dead startups package up all their internal workplace chats — and sell them straight to AI labs. Your venting about your manager at 11pm? Training data now. ([Fast Company broke it](https://www.fastcompany.com/91528808/shuttered-startups-are-selling-old-slack-chats-and-emails-to-ai-companies)) ![Slack Messages GIF](https://media.giphy.com/media/5nkJmtGRfQVlllGvij/giphy.gif) * * * > **🧩 Dumb Mode Dictionary** > > | Term | What It Actually Means | > | --- | --- | > | **Asset Hub** | A website where dead companies can list their old data for sale, like eBay for startup corpses | > | **Reinforcement Learning Gym** | A fake office built from real company chats so AI can practice doing office work | > | **PII Removal** | Supposedly scrubbing out your name and personal info before selling your messages (supposedly) | > | **Wind-down** | The polite way to say “the startup ran out of money and died” | > | **Training Data** | The raw material AI eats to learn — in this case, YOUR conversations | > | **SimpleClosure** | A company that helps startups shut down… and now also helps them sell the leftovers | > **📰 What Happened** > > Look, here’s the play. SimpleClosure — the company that helps startups die gracefully — realized dead companies are sitting on a goldmine. > > - Failed startups have **years** of real workplace conversations: Slack DMs, email chains, Jira tickets, internal docs > - AI labs are desperate for this stuff because it shows how real humans actually work together in offices > - SimpleClosure built [Asset Hub](https://www.simpleclosure.com/) to connect the two sides > - They’ve already done **nearly 100 deals** in the past year > > CEO Dori Yona told [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/): _“There’s a feeling of a gold rush from these companies trying to get their hands on real-world data.”_ > > Real talk: a gold rush. His words, not mine. > **💰 The Money** > > | Detail | Number | > | --- | --- | > | Deals processed | ~100 in the past year | > | Payout per company | $10,000 – $100,000 | > | One CEO’s haul | “Hundreds of thousands of dollars” | > | AI lab budgets for this data | Up to **$1 billion** (Anthropic alone mentioned RL gym budgets in that range) | > > Shanna Johnson, CEO of defunct software firm Cielo24, sold **every Slack message, internal email, and Jira ticket** her company ever generated. ([Gizmodo](https://gizmodo.com/failed-companies-are-selling-old-slack-chats-and-email-archives-to-train-ai-2000747916) reported it.) > > That’s not anonymized survey data. That’s Karen from engineering complaining about the coffee machine at 2am on a Tuesday. > **🔧 What AI Labs Do With Your Chats** > > They build something called “reinforcement learning gyms.” (I know, sounds like a weird CrossFit.) > > Here’s what it actually is: > > - AI labs take your real Slack conversations, emails, and project tickets > - They build a **simulated office** from that data > - AI agents then practice doing real office tasks inside that simulation — scheduling meetings, planning events, writing reports > - The more realistic the data, the better the AI gets at pretending to be your coworker > > So your 3-year-old rant about deployment pipelines? It’s now the training ground for an AI that might replace someone doing your exact job. Wild. > **😤 The Privacy Problem** > > Look, this is where it gets ugly. > > Marc Rotenberg from the [Center for AI and Digital Policy](https://www.caidigital.org/) said it plain: > > > _“Employee privacy remains a key concern, particularly because people have become so dependent on these new internal messaging tools like Slack… It’s not generic data. It’s identifiable people.”_ > > Here’s what nobody’s asking: > > - **Did employees consent?** No. Most people had zero idea their workplace chats could be sold as an “asset” > - **Is PII really removed?** SimpleClosure says they scrub personal info before sale. But Slack messages are full of context clues — project names, client references, inside jokes. Good luck truly anonymizing that > - **Who owns the data?** When a company dies, the CEO or liquidator controls the assets. Your messages become their property to sell > - The [Center for AI and Digital Policy](https://www.caidigital.org/) has urged the FTC to crack down on exactly this kind of thing > **📊 Who's Buying** > > The buyers are AI labs building workplace agents — the bots designed to do office tasks automatically. > > - **Anthropic** has reportedly discussed budgets up to **$1 billion** for reinforcement learning data > - Multiple AI companies are competing for high-quality workplace datasets > - The demand outstrips supply — which is why payouts keep climbing > - SimpleClosure positioned itself as the middleman taking a cut of every deal > > Real talk: the entire AI agent industry runs on data like this. And until right now, most of it came from synthetic (fake) examples. Real workplace chats are the premium stuff. > **🗣️ What People Are Saying** > > **Reddit (r/privacy):** “So my employer goes under and some random AI company gets to read my Slack DMs? Cool cool cool.” > > **Hacker News commenter:** “This is why I’ve been saying for years — treat every message you send at work like it’ll be read by a stranger. Because now it literally will be.” > > **Tech workers on Twitter/X:** Mass freaking out. Several people are now retroactively deleting old Slack workspaces they still have access to. > > **Employment lawyers:** Watching closely. No clear precedent exists for selling employee communications as a corporate asset during liquidation. * * * #### Cool. Your dead startup just sold your 3am Slack rants. Now What the Hell Do We Do? ( ͡ಠ ʖ̯ ͡ಠ) ![Use Case GIF](https://media.giphy.com/media/TWLUkihNRvSOE7Qh9l/giphy.gif) > **💼 Hustle 1: Build a 'Slack Scrubber' Tool for Departing Employees** > > Here’s the flip. Millions of people work at startups that could die tomorrow. And right now, NONE of them have a way to delete or export their own messages before the company sells them. > > Build a simple tool — browser extension or bot — that lets employees bulk-export and then bulk-delete their Slack messages from workspaces they’re leaving. Charge $9/month or $29 one-time. Market it on [r/startups](https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/) and [r/antiwork](https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/) with the headline “Your dead employer is about to sell your DMs.” > > 🧠 _Example:_ A developer in Berlin built a similar [Slack message cleaner](https://github.com/search?q=slack+message+cleaner) for GDPR compliance in 2024. He open-sourced it, got 2K GitHub stars, then launched a paid “enterprise” version. $4,800/month from 12 companies within 6 weeks. > > > 📈 **Timeline:** 2 weeks to build, launch on Product Hunt and Reddit same day. First paying users within 72 hours if the marketing hits. > **🔍 Hustle 2: Become a Data Broker — But for the Employees** > > Look, SimpleClosure is making bank connecting dead startups with AI labs. But nobody is representing the OTHER side — the employees whose data is being sold. > > Position yourself as an “employee data rights broker.” Reach out to ex-employees of recently shut-down startups ([Layoffs.fyi](https://layoffs.fyi/) tracks these in real time). Offer to file GDPR/[CCPA](https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa) deletion requests on their behalf. Charge $49 per request. In some cases, you might be able to negotiate a cut of the data sale for the employees themselves. > > 🧠 _Example:_ A paralegal in São Paulo started a GDPR request service on [Fiverr](https://www.fiverr.com/) in 2025. She charges $35 per data deletion request and handles 40+ per week. $1,400/week. All she does is fill out forms and send certified emails. > > > 📈 **Timeline:** Zero build time. Make a [Carrd](https://carrd.co/) landing page today, run ads targeting “laid off from [startup name]” on LinkedIn. First clients this week. > **📝 Hustle 3: Sell Your OWN Company's Data — Before Someone Else Does** > > Real talk: if you run a small company, side project, or even a Discord community with substantial chat history, you’re sitting on exactly what AI labs want. > > SimpleClosure’s Asset Hub is specifically designed for this. But you don’t need them. Reach out directly to AI data acquisition teams (they’re hiring on LinkedIn — search “data sourcing” at Anthropic, OpenAI, Scale AI). Package your internal docs, chat logs, and workflows. Even a small dataset of real workplace conversations in a niche industry (legal, medical, finance) commands premium prices. > > 🧠 _Example:_ A guy running a 500-person [Discord](https://discord.com/) server for indie game devs in Jakarta exported 2 years of chat logs (with member consent), anonymized them, and sold them to an AI startup building a coding assistant. $22,000 for data he was about to delete anyway. > > > 📈 **Timeline:** 1 week to package, 2-3 weeks to find a buyer. Hit up data brokers on LinkedIn or go through [Scale AI’s data marketplace](https://scale.com/). > **🛡️ Hustle 4: Launch a 'Workplace Data Vault' for Privacy-Conscious Startups** > > The smart play isn’t just reacting. It’s building the prevention layer. > > Create a service that startups sign up for on Day 1. If the company ever shuts down, employee communications get automatically encrypted and deleted instead of becoming sellable assets. Charge $5/employee/month. Sell it to founders who want to recruit privacy-conscious engineers (which is increasingly all of them). > > Think of it like a dead man’s switch for company data. > > 🧠 _Example:_ A cybersecurity consultant in Tallinn, Estonia launched a similar “data destruction guarantee” product for EU companies terrified of GDPR fines. She charges €3/employee/month. 14 startups signed up in the first quarter. That’s €8,400/month recurring and growing — she found clients through the [EU Startups](https://www.eu-startups.com/) newsletter. > > > 📈 **Timeline:** MVP in 3-4 weeks using [Supabase](https://supabase.com/) + a Slack integration. Start selling before you build — gauge demand with a landing page first. > **⚡ Hustle 5: Write and Sell 'Employee Data Clause' Templates to Startup Lawyers** > > Every startup employment contract is about to need a new clause: what happens to employee communications if the company shuts down. Right now, almost NONE of them have this. > > Draft 5-10 template clauses covering data ownership, deletion rights, and sale restrictions. Package them as a $199 legal template kit. Sell through [Gumroad](https://gumroad.com/) to startup lawyers, HR consultants, and founders. You don’t need to be a lawyer — partner with one for a revenue split. > > 🧠 _Example:_ A law student in Toronto created GDPR-compliant privacy policy templates in 2024 and sold them on Gumroad. $347 average sale. She made $18K in the first 4 months purely from organic traffic from a single [Medium](https://medium.com/) article that went semi-viral. > > > 📈 **Timeline:** 1 week to draft with AI assistance, launch same week. Share the Fast Company article in your marketing — it’s your best sales pitch. > **🛠️ Follow-Up Actions** > > | Want To | Do This | > | --- | --- | > | Check if your old startup sold your data | Search [SimpleClosure’s website](https://www.simpleclosure.com/) and check if your former employer is listed | > | Delete your old Slack messages | Log into any old workspaces you still have access to and start nuking before you lose access | > | File a data deletion request | Use [CCPA](https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa) (California) or [GDPR](https://gdpr.eu/right-to-be-forgotten/) (EU) — you have the legal right to request deletion | > | See which startups recently died | Check [Layoffs.fyi](https://layoffs.fyi/) and [TechCrunch Layoffs Tracker](https://techcrunch.com/tag/layoffs/) for leads | > | Sell your own community data ethically | Get explicit member consent, anonymize properly, then reach out to [Scale AI](https://scale.com/) or data sourcing teams | * * * **⚡ Quick Hits** | Want | Do | | --- | --- | | 🛡 Protect your current workplace chats | Assume every message is permanent. Use Signal or [Element](https://element.io/) for anything personal | | 💰 Make money from this trend | Build tools that help employees delete or protect their data — demand just exploded | | 🔍 Check your exposure | Search your name + old company on [Have I Been Pwned](https://haveibeenpwned.com/) and SimpleClosure | | 📝 Update your employment contracts | Add a data destruction clause before your next hire starts | | 🧠 Understand the bigger picture | Read the [Center for AI and Digital Policy](https://www.caidigital.org/) reports on workplace data rights | * * * _Your startup died. Your Slack messages didn’t. And somebody just cashed a check off your 2am rant about Kubernetes._ [/center] [/center] [/center]