Failed Startups Selling Slack Messages and Emails to AI Companies via SimpleClosure Asset Hub

Fast Company·medium signal

SimpleClosure launched Asset Hub, a platform enabling shuttered startups to license their internal data — including Slack messages, emails, documents, and workflows — to AI companies for $10,000 to $100,000 per dataset. Nearly 100 such deals have been processed in the past year. AI labs are using these archives to build 'reinforcement learning gyms': simulated workplace environments for training agents on real office tasks. Marc Rotenberg of the Center for AI and Digital Policy called the privacy implications 'quite substantial,' noting that Slack communications contain identifiable people and are not generic data. The story appeared from two independent sources: a tweet from @_iainmartin (38pts on HN) and a Fast Company investigation (31pts).