Assuming a non-graceful shutdown, i.e. the company runs out of money with no acquisition offer and enters bankruptcy liquidation. Also assumes everything's legal and on the up-and-up, which can be a rarity for startups with more than one interested party.<p>Customers: they get a shutdown notice and the service stops working for them, and have to find competitors that do the same thing.<p>Founders & employees: laid off and go look for jobs.<p>Board members: move on with their lives.<p>Data, IP, office furniture, leftover inventory, rubber bands: sold at auction to pay creditors.<p>Social media accounts & domain names: technically this is property of the corporation and is also sold at auction, but in a sale that assumes no acquisition offer for team/brand/IP, they're often worthless. They become zombies and eventually revert to the public under whatever inactivity policy the host has (eg. domain names often get snapped up by speculators).<p>Debt: There's a pecking order for debts and other capital claims, and whatever money left in the company checking account + the liquidation sale mentioned beforehand goes to it. IIUC, unpaid wages come first, then unpaid suppliers. Then senior debt with liquidation rights negotiated into the contract (eg. my wife invests with philanthropic debt, which often has these clauses). Then regular debt, bondholders, then preferred stock, then common stock. Founders & employees usually hold common, which is the last to get paid out.<p>All the startups I've personally shut down did so with no drama, but there is a big tendency to fight over the carcass, particularly when you have people with bigger egos involved. One that I worked at, for example, involved an IP auction where the founder stealth-bid (through an employee friend) against the VCs, the auction house accidentally told both parties they had won, the lawsuits went flying, and the founder moved to China with the IP to start the exact same company and run it into the ground again.