Tech CEO Andy Byron has resigned after being caught in an embrace with his company’s chief people officer at a Coldplay concert.<\/p>\n
“Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted,” Astronomer said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met.”<\/p>\n
Astronomer says it will begin searching for its next chief executive as the company’s co-founder and chief product officer, Pete DeJoy, serves as interim CEO.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Astronomer said its leaders are “expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met”. (TikTok: @Instaagrace)<\/p>\n
Mr Byron became embroiled in an internet scandal when a video of him embracing his chief people officer, Kristen Cabot, at a Massachusetts Coldplay concert went viral.<\/p>\n
The pair were being filmed by concert crew, with the footage being projected on large screens.<\/p>\n
Both Mr Byron and Ms Cabot, who had their arms around each other, became embarrassed, with Ms Cabot covering her face and Mr Byron dropping to the floor.<\/p>\n
Coldplay singer Chris Martin can be heard saying, “either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy”.<\/p>\n
On Friday, local time, Astronomer announced Mr Byron has been placed on leave.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Andy Byron has since been removed from Astronomer’s leadership team on the company website. (Astronomer)<\/p>\n
In its announcement of Mr Byron’s resignation, the New York-based tech company acknowledged the viral nature of events.<\/p>\n
“Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space,” Astronomer said.<\/p>\n
“While awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not.”<\/p>\n
Mr Bryon has since been removed from the leadership team on Astronomer’s website but remains visible on the company’s board of directors.<\/p>\n
Online reaction<\/p>\n
It took just one 15-second video posted to TikTok for the moment to ignite the internet.<\/p>\n
Concertgoer Grace Springer was filming the Coldplay gig the moment the camera locked on Mr Byron and Ms Cabot and captured their now-infamous reaction.<\/p>\n
She then uploaded the clip to her TikTok account under her username @instaagrace.<\/p>\n
As of Saturday morning, the video has been viewed more than 100.4 million times and has garnered 8.9 million likes.<\/p>\n
The internet was quick to respond, with countless reactions flooding social media.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Coldplay have gained a reputation for putting on immersive concerts that feature audience participation. (Reuters: Mads File\/Claus Rasmussen\/Ritzau Scanpix)<\/p>\n
“I don’t know what’s worse. Getting caught cheating or getting caught at a Coldplay concert,” one user wrote on X.<\/p>\n
Another wrote: “This story is absolutely unremarkable except in how it managed to combine almost everything it’s socially acceptable to hate brilliantly: HR, Coldplay, cheaters, CEOs, millionaires”.<\/p>\n
Ms Springer spared a thought for the partners of Mr Byron and Ms Cabot.<\/p>\n
“A part of me feels bad for turning these people’s lives upside down, but play stupid games \u2026 win stupid prizes,” Ms Springer told UK tabloid The Sun.<\/p>\n
“I hope their partners can heal from this and get a second chance at the happiness they deserve with their future still in front of them.<\/p>\n
“I hope, for them, my video was a blessing in disguise.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tech CEO Andy Byron has resigned after being caught in an embrace with his company’s chief people officer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1761,64,63,1764,1762,134,8688],"class_list":["post-6859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-andy-byron","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chief-people-officer","tag-coldplay","tag-entertainment","tag-resigns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}