The CEO caught with his arms around a colleague on the kiss cam at the Coldplay concert at Gillette Stadium has resigned, shortly after the company placed him on leave.
Astronomer has announced its board of directors has accepted Andy Byron’s resignation, prompting the beginning of the company’s impromptu search for its next chief executive officer.
“As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding,” the company stated in a LinkedIn post Saturday afternoon. “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met.”
“Andy Byron has tendered his resignation,” the post continued, “and the Board of Directors has accepted. The Board will begin a search for our next Chief Executive as Cofounder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy continues to serve as interim CEO.”
It has been a whirlwind past few days for the New York City-based software development company. Byron’s resignation comes after its board placed the CEO on leave Friday afternoon, hours after it announced it had begun an investigation into his conduct.
The flurry of action was spurred when Byron and Human Resources chief Kristin Cabot were caught cuddling on the kiss cam at Coldplay’s concert in Foxboro on Wednesday.
Byron and Cabot’s alleged romance went mega viral when a video circulated of lead singer Chris Martin blowing up an alleged “affair.”
When the “kiss cam” went up on the big screen at the concert, Byron was spotted with his arms around Cabot. “Oh, look at these two,” Martin said of the cozy couple.
Cabot immediately puts her hands over her eyes in apparent shame and turns away, while Byron quickly drops down to get out of the camera’s view.
The crowd starts breaking out in laughter.
“Either they’re having an affair or he’s very shy,” Martin said.
A woman next to Cabot is seen smiling with her hand on her head. People online have been identifying her as another Astronomer employee — Alyssa Stoddard, VP of HR. But Astronomer debunked that rumor on Friday, saying the employee was not there.
Astronomer achieved so-called “unicorn status” in 2022, with a valuation of $1 billion or more.
“Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space,” the company stated in its Saturday afternoon post, “helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI.”
“While awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not,” it continued. “We’re continuing to do what we do best: helping our customers with their toughest data and AI problems.”
Charlsie Niemic, whose LinkedIn account lists her as a creative content marketing manager from Atlanta, reacted to Byron’s resignation, saying she believes the cheating scandal has “hit the internet so hard (because) it’s not just a scandal. It’s a mirror.”
“We’ve all seen this play out at work,” Niemic wrote in a post, “maybe not with a viral TikTok breakdown, but definitely behind closed doors and in HR’s inbox.”
“Andy Byron (CEO) + Kristin Cabot (Chief People Officer) = a collision of power, proximity, and performative policy,” she added. “And let’s be so for real: most of us have been impacted by this exact dynamic.”
Astronomer says it’s investigating after CEO Andy Byron, HR head Kristin Cabot caught on kiss cam at Coldplay concert