Astronomer new CEO says Andy Byron-Kristin Cabot's Coldplay concert scandal made tech company ‘a household name’

Astronomer’s interim CEO and co-founder, Pete DeJoy, has made his first public statement following his unexpected appointment this Saturday, expressing a desire to steer the tech startup beyond the recent viral incident involving former CEO Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot.

The viral moment, which captured global attention, took place during a Coldplay concert in Boston, where Andy Byron was recorded in an intimate embrace with the company’s head of human resources Kristin Cabot.

Andy Byron resigned just days after the video surfaced on social media, prompting the Astronomer board to appoint Pete DeJoy as interim chief and to initiate a search for a permanent CEO.

Reflecting on the situation, Co-founder and now interim CEO of Astronomer Pete DeJoy described the intense media focus following the Coldplay concert scandal as “unusual and surreal,” signalling his commitment to move the company forward amid the upheaval.

Astronomer CEO Pete DeJoy's Full Statement on LinkedIn

Over the weekend, I stepped into the role of Interim CEO at Astronomer, a company that I’ve proudly poured my entire professional life into helping build.

Over the past few years, our business has experienced incredible growth. What was once a mission to help companies with Apache Airflow has turned into so much more. We’re privileged to sit at the center of our customers’ data & AI strategy, powering data pipelines behind in-game analytics of your favorite sports team, LLM powered chatbots for customer support, training AI for self-driving cars, and every mission-critical process in between.

The events of the past few days have received a level of media attention that few companies—let alone startups in our small corner of the data and AI world—ever encounter. The spotlight has been unusual and surreal for our team and, while I would never have wished for it to happen like this, Astronomer is now a household name.

At Astronomer we have never shied away from challenges; a near-decade of building this business has tested us time and time again, and each time we’ve emerged stronger. From starting a software company in Cincinnati, Ohio, to keeping the lights on through the collapse of the bank that held all our cash, to scaling from 30 to 300 people during a global pandemic that demanded we do it all without ever being in the same room.

And yet, we’re still here.

We’re here because Astronomer is built by people who live to solve hard problems, stay late to fix what’s broken, and care deeply about doing things the right way. We’re here because our customers trust us with their most ambitious data & AI projects. And, most importantly, we’re here because the mission is bigger than any one moment.

I’m stepping into this role with a wholehearted commitment to taking care of our people and delivering for our customers. Astronomer’s foundation remains strong, built around the thriving Apache Airflow community. Our opportunity to build a DataOps platform for the age of AI remains massive. And our story is very much still being written.

To our team: thank you for your resilience & commitment to building something great. And to our community and customers: thank you for your trust. We won’t let you down.

What happened at the Coldplay concert?

During the concert on Wednesday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, lead singer Chris Martin asked the cameras to scan the crowd for his “Jumbotron Song,” when he sings a few lines about the people the camera lands on.

A man wearing a birthday sash was up first. Two people in banana costumes were highlighted.

But in between, something unexpected happened. For several seconds, a couple was shown on the big screen. They were cuddling and smiling, his arms wrapped around her, as she leaned back into him.

When they saw themselves on the big screen, her jaw dropped, her hands flew to her face and she spun away from the camera. He ducked out of the frame, as did she.

“Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy,” Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin joked.

It didn’t end there.

Who was involved in Coldplay Concert Scandal?

After the Coldplay concert video went viral, the internet got to work.

Online sleuths rapidly figured out that the man was Andy Byron, chief executive officer, while she was Kristin Cabot, the chief people officer — in other words, the head of human resources.

Astronomer, based in New York, provides big companies with a platform that helps them organize their data.

The company at first said little about the incident. In response Astronomer's spokesman said only that a statement attributed to Byron that circulated online immediately after the incident was a “fake from a clearly labeled parody account.”

What happened to Astronomer CEO Andy Byron?

In the hours after the video went viral, Andy Byron's name was at one point the most searched term on Google.

Astronomer eventually addressed the situation, announcing in a LinkedIn post late Friday that Byron had been placed on leave and that the board of directors had launched a formal investigation.

The company said a day later that Andy Byron had resigned, and that its cofounder and chief product officer, Pete DeJoy, was tapped as interim CEO while it searches for Byron’s successor. Chief HR officer Kristin Cabot still remains on Astronomer payroll.