Would you license your old/dead codebase as AI training data for $10k?
Quick disclosure up front: I work with HUD AI (YC W25). We license private (high-quality) codebases as training data for Frontier AI labs, and I'm trying to figure out how builders/founders actually feel about this. TL;DR โ if you've got a private, closed-source codebase with real history (multiple

Quick disclosure up front: I work with HUD AI (YC W25). We license private (high-quality) codebases as training data for Frontier AI labs, and I'm trying to figure out how builders/founders actually feel about this. TL;DR โ if you've got a private, closed-source codebase with real history (multiple contributors, a lot of commits, built over months or years โ a dead or pivoted startup/SaaS is the classic case) it can be worth real money as training data. Frontier AI labs pay up to $10k for a qualifying one. It's a license, not a sale โ you keep ownership โ and the same codebase can be licensed to more than one buyer, each a separate one-off payment if it's rare. How the process works today (feedback welcome): You go to vendor.hud.ai/codebases and get the private repos you want checked for estimated value (at this stage no rights are transferred to HUD or its partners at all; any data is only retained for up to 30 days). HUD's algorithms automatically qualify or disqualify codebases; vendors with qualifying ones get reached out to and onboarded properly with NDAs etc. (via the email from the check and/or the email on your GitHub). As a vendor you list the repos you want to license to labs. When lab requests come in, your repos get matched; if you accept, the license is made and you're paid within 7โ14 days. Sometimes labs need mild processing (e.g. stripping PII) to package the code โ HUD gives you tools on the platform to prep and package it easily. In the last month alone HUD has facilitated a couple million in transactions, so we know there's real demand from the people we've introduced it to. What I'm actually curious about (from a cold-intro perspective): Would you ever do this with code from a startup that's no longer live? Why / why not? What would make you hesitate โ IP, privacy, "feels like a scam", something else? Does "license, you keep ownership, revoke anytime" change the answer? What makes you interested or not interested? If you want to just try the check it's at vendor.hud.ai/codebases โ but I'm as interested in the objections as the leads. Happy to answer anything in the comments or by DM,. Happy to hop on a quick call too if you have feedback or questions you'd rather not type out. Thanks!
Key Takeaways
- โขQuick disclosure up front: I work with HUD AI (YC W25)
- โขThis story was reported by Dev.to, covering developments in the dev space.
- โขAI advancements continue to reshape industries โ read the full article on Dev.to for complete coverage.
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