{"id":8995,"date":"2025-07-19T21:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T21:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/8995\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T21:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T21:37:07","slug":"astronomer-ceo-resigns-following-coldplay-concert-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/8995\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomer CEO resigns following Coldplay concert scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Andy Byron, the startup executive at the center of an extraordinary social media furor, has resigned as CEO of data operations startup Astronomer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Byron, who is married, was captured on a Coldplay concert \u201ckiss cam\u201d with his arms around the company\u2019s chief people officer Kristin Cabot. After Byron and Cabot quickly tried to hide from the camera, Coldplay singer Chris Martin joked, \u201cEither they\u2019re having an affair or they\u2019re just very shy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Video of the awkward incident soon went spectacularly viral \u2014 <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/07\/18\/coldplay-kiss-cam-astronomer\" target=\"_blank\">Axios, citing Muck Rack data, reported<\/a> on Friday that over the preceding 24 hours, 22,000 news articles had been published about the startup, including 9,000 about Byron himself. (Amidst the many jokes and memes, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.404media.co\/the-astronomer-ceos-coldplay-concert-fiasco-is-emblematic-of-our-social-media-surveillance-dystopia\/\" target=\"_blank\">404 Media argued<\/a> that the incident is \u201cemblematic of our social media surveillance dystopia.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Astronomer, which announced in May that it had <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomer.io\/press-releases\/astronomer-secures-93-million-series-d-funding\/\" target=\"_blank\">raised a $93 million Series D<\/a>, said Friday that <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/astronomerio\/status\/1946373253519557042?s=46\">Byron had been placed on leave<\/a>, with cofounder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy becoming interim CEO. Cabot has <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/07\/18\/coldplay-kiss-cam-astronomer\" target=\"_blank\">reportedly been placed on leave<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, the company has released <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/astronomer_as-stated-previously-astronomer-is-committed-activity-7352406400280514560-UBvJ\/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop&amp;rcm=ACoAADLC2vQBi-CbOt7lA-puNns0LUuU_3JECBs\" target=\"_blank\">a longer statement<\/a> announcing that Byron has resigned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOur leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met,\u201d Astronomer said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBefore this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI,\u201d the company added. \u201cWhile awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DeJoy will continue to serve as interim CEO as the board searches for a permanent replacement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Byron, the startup executive at the center of an extraordinary social media furor, has resigned as CEO&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4364,5489,43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-8995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-andy-byron","9":"tag-astronomer","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}