Astronomer CEO's love affair accidentally caught on camera during Coldplay concert, CEO formally resigns
Andy Byron, CEO of data operations startup Astronomer, has resigned from his position following an extraordinary social media furor over a concert by British rock band Coldplay.
Astronomer CEO resigns following Coldplay concert scandal | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/19/astronomer-ceo-resigns-following-coldplay-concert-scandal/
On July 16, 2025 local time, a Coldplay concert was held in Massachusetts, USA. During the concert, a huge circular screen was placed on the stage, and vocalist Chris Martin performed a performance in which he played with the audience who were shown on the screen during the concert.
During the live broadcast, Andy Byron, who is married, was seen embracing Christine Cabot, the company's chief human resources officer, in an intimate manner.
Coldplay's Chris Martin accidentally exposes astronomer CEO Andy Byron having an affair with his HR chief Kristin Cabot. pic.twitter.com/GMa2g0EiK3
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 17, 2025
Coldplay accidentally exposed an alleged affair between Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and his colleague Kristin Cabot at one of their recent concerts. pic.twitter.com/hsJHV2u5UM
— Pop Base (@PopBase) July 17, 2025
When they realised they were being shown on the big screen, Cabot covered his face with his hands and turned away from the camera, while Byron crouched down to disappear from the camera's field of view, prompting Martin to joke, 'Are they having an affair or are they just very shy?'
The video quickly went viral on social media, with Axios reporting that within 24 hours of the live broadcast, 22,000 news articles about Astronomer and 9,000 about Byron had been published online, according to data from Muck Rack, a data analytics company.
Astronomer is a data operations startup that just announced $93 million in funding in May 2025. Following the uproar on social media, Astronomer announced on July 19 that Byron would be taking a leave of absence and that co-founder and chief product officer Pete DeJoy would become interim CEO. According to Axios reports, Cabot has also been placed on leave.
Cofounder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy is currently serving as interim CEO given Andy Byron has been placed on leave.
— Astronomer (@astronomerio) July 19, 2025
We will share more details as appropriate in the coming days. pic.twitter.com/VfgWPnfycl
In addition, on July 20, LinkedIn announced that Byron had resigned as CEO. Astronomer's statement read, 'Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both behavior and accountability, and recently those standards have not been met,' and 'Until this week, we were known as pioneers in the data operations space, helping to power the foundations of all data teams, from modern analytics to production AI. While perceptions of our company may have changed overnight, our commitment to our products and customers remains the same.' A similar statement was also published on X.
As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met.
— Astronomer (@astronomerio) July 19, 2025
Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and… pic.twitter.com/aTTUhnnyVz
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