{"id":89531,"date":"2025-08-23T08:09:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T08:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/89531\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T08:09:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T08:09:12","slug":"astronomers-new-ceo-speaks-yes-about-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/89531\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomer\u2019s New CEO Speaks\u2014Yes, About That"},"content":{"rendered":"

The only people from Astronomer attending the Coldplay concert in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on July 16 were CEO Andy Byron and his head of HR, Kristin Cabot. They were swaying in mid-hug<\/a> when the roving kiss cam, a staple at the band\u2019s performances, zeroed in on them. You have probably seen the clip of what happened next. The two of them scrambled like kids caught raiding a cookie jar. Even Coldplay\u2019s anodyne frontman Chris Martin couldn\u2019t ignore their response. \u201cThey\u2019re either having an affair, or they\u2019re just very shy,\u201d he remarked. The CEO and his subordinate are no longer with the company. Astronomer, a billion-dollar startup<\/a> you\u2019d likely never heard of until last month, will never be the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found out the way the rest of the world found out,\u201d says Pete DeJoy, who cofounded the company and took over as chief executive when Byron left. He\u2019s speaking to me from Astronomer\u2019s new headquarters in the Flatiron district of New York City<\/a>. Until our conversation, his main public statement following the concert had been a LinkedIn post<\/a> thanking his employees for their resilience and conspicuously omitting any mention of why a \u201csurreal\u201d spotlight was suddenly trained on the company. DeJoy, a self-described nerd, can still hardly believe what happened last month. But don\u2019t be fooled. The kiss-cam incident created a rare opportunity to call attention to the company\u2019s accomplishments, and show off a bit of corporate savvy in how to handle the situation. The most entertaining thing that has ever happened at a Coldplay concert turned out to be weirdly rhapsodic for the company it supposedly humiliated. (Though maybe not so much for Byron and Cabot.) But it still makes DeJoy cringe.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, in our extensive conversation, DeJoy made a point of distancing himself from the events at Gillette Stadium. He managed to twist every question about the presumably sizzling goings-on in the corporate suite into a tribute to the heads-down, stick-to-business ethos of the firm\u2019s 300 workers.<\/p>\n

Cosmic Mess<\/p>\n

DeJoy insists that within the company, there was no inkling of any hanky-panky in the C-suite. Still, I wonder, could the company have been in any way lax in allowing its frisky executives to shatter the bounds? \u201cLook, we\u2019re reviewing all of our policies,\u201d he tells me. \u201cIt’s really important to me that we make sure that we prohibit relationships between employees that create real or perceived conflicts of interest.\u201d So there\u2019s an outside investigation? \u201cI\u2019m just going to say all of our workplace policies are being reviewed no matter what. It’s important to get this one right.\u201d He won\u2019t say whether the \u201creview\u201d entails Astronomer hiring an outside firm to investigate the scandal. Nor did he answer my question about whether Byron got a severance package upon his untimely departure.<\/p>\n

I asked him directly: Is DeJoy pissed at his former boss for embarrassing the company? \u201cNo, no, I don\u2019t think I can say I am,\u201d he insists. \u201cPeople make mistakes. We really just want to continue focusing on what matters here, which is our customers and our business.\u201d (See what I mean about messaging?) I ask when he last spoke to Byron. \u201cA long time ago,\u201d he says. \u201cBefore the event.\u201d Wait, you haven\u2019t talked to him since the Jumbotron? \u201cThat\u2019s correct,\u201d he says. Now that\u2019s cold play.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Astronomer\u2019s outsourced response to the incident will go into the marketing hall of fame. While employees were working overtime to assure customers that the kiss-cam drama wouldn’t impact the company\u2019s services, its executives hired Ryan Reynolds\u2019 cheeky media firm Maximum Effort. The result was a 60-second ad<\/a> with Gwyneth Paltrow (Martin\u2019s ex), who displayed Oscar-level deadpan when she promised the internet she\u2019d answer their questions about the incident. The joke was that her responses to queries about the concert were bromides about the firm\u2019s geeky business. (Kind of like my interview with DeJoy.) Responding to \u201cOMG! What the actual f!\u201d she said. \u201cYes, Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow.\u201d The absurdity of Paltrow, who is more often associated with organic skin-care products and jade eggs, talking about \u201cdata workflow automation\u201d was priceless. It successfully shifted the narrative, at least a bit, to a question that many people were suddenly asking: What the actual f is Astronomer?<\/p>\n

DeJoy, who says he never got to meet his famous (albeit temporary) spokesperson, is more than happy to answer the question. The company was started by a small group of techies in Cincinnati in 2017. The original idea involved data tracking. That\u2019s sort of why they named their firm Astronomer. \u201cAstronomers were the first data engineers, because they were making sense of how the world worked by intuiting how the stars were moving in the night sky,\u201d says DeJoy. \u201cThat’s very much the job of a data engineer these days, right?\u201d If you say so!<\/p>\n