\n
<\/p>\n
Just because a startup fails doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t cash out big. <\/p>\n
According to a report by Forbes<\/em><\/a>, defunct companies are selling their digital footprints to AI companies as training data\u2014and making real money from it. Shanna Johnson, the CEO of now-defunct software company cielo24, told the publication that she was able to sell every Slack message, internal email and Jira ticket as training data for \u201chundreds of thousands of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t a one-off scenario. SimpleClosure, a startup that helps companies like cielo24 shut down, told Forbes <\/em>that there\u2019s been major interest from AI companies trying to get their hands on workplace data. Because of this, SimpleClosure launched a new tool that allows companies to sell their wealth of internal communications\u2014from Slack archives to email chains\u2014to AI labs. The company said they\u2019ve processed 100 such deals in the past year. Payouts ranged from $10,000 to $100,000.<\/p>\n Naturally, there are real data privacy concerns here. Even if the data is anonymized, these communications can contain personally identifiable information, especially for an employee who built out a long career at the company. <\/p>\n \u201cI think the privacy issues here are quite substantial,\u201d Marc Rotenberg, founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy, told Forbes<\/em>. \u201cEmployee privacy remains a key concern, particularly because people have become so dependent on these new internal messaging tools like Slack\u2026It’s not generic data. It’s identifiable people.\u201d<\/p>\n AI has been at the heart of workplace tensions, especially as companies increasingly pressure workers to embrace AI tools. <\/p>\n