Astronomer now household name: New CEO's first statement after kiss-cam scandal

3 days ago

Data and AI startup Astronomer has appointed co-founder Pete DeJoy as interim CEO after its former chief executive stepped down following a controversy involving a Coldplay concert.Andy Byron stepped down as CEO of AI company Astronomer, days after a video of him and Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot appearing on a 'kiss cam' at a Coldplay concert near Boston went viral.'Surreal spotlight': From quiet startup to centre of attentionIn a public note posted on LinkedIn, Pete DeJoy acknowledged the 'unusual and surreal' attention the company has received over the past few days.'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,' he wrote. 'While I would never have wished for it to happen like this, Astronomer is now a household name.'DeJoy, who co-founded Astronomer and has been a key figure in shaping its direction since the beginning, said he stepped into the role of interim CEO 'over the weekend.' He said his focus will be on supporting the team and ensuring customer trust remains intact.A company built through challengesFounded in Cincinnati, Ohio, Astronomer started out as a platform helping organisations make the most of Apache Airflow, an open-source tool used to manage complex data pipelines. Over time, the startup has grown into a major player in the DataOps space, working on backend data infrastructure for everything from sports analytics and AI chatbots to autonomous vehicle training.DeJoy said that the company had survived tough moments before, from banking crises to scaling during a pandemic, and that the current moment was just another test of resilience. '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,' he wrote.DeJoy hinted at a renewed focus on values and internal trust. '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,' he said.The company has reportedly taken internal steps to reinforce its culture and support employees following the media storm. Several team members have expressed support for the transition, highlighting DeJoy's long involvement in shaping Astronomer's growth story.DeJoy said that despite the noise around the leadership change, Astronomer's mission remains intact. 'Our opportunity to build a DataOps platform for the age of AI remains massive. And our story is very much still being written,' he said.The statement ended on a note of reassurance to employees, customers, and the broader open-source community around Apache Airflow: '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.'- EndsMust Watch
advertisement

Hashtags

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Female HR executive caught on Coldplay camera resigns after embrace with CEO went viral

The Hindu

20 minutes ago

The Hindu

Female HR executive caught on Coldplay camera resigns after embrace with CEO went viral

The female executive who was caught on camera embracing the CEO of her company at a Coldplay concert in a moment that went viral has resigned, according to news reports. Multiple news outlets reported that Kristin Cabot, the executive in charge of human resources at tech company Astronomer, has resigned. Her departure follows the resignation of CEO Andy Byron, who quit after the company said he was being put on leave pending an investigation. The episode resulted in endless memes, parody videos and screenshots of the pair's shocked faces filling social media feeds Cabot and Byron were caught by surprise when singer Chris Martin asked the cameras to scan the crowd for his 'Jumbotron Song' during the concert last week at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. They were shown cuddling and smiling, but when they saw themselves on the big screen, Cabot's jaw dropped, her hands flew to her face and she spun away from the camera while Byron ducked out of the frame. 'Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy,' Martin joked in video that spread quickly around the internet. When the video first spread online it wasn't immediately clear who they were, but online sleuths rapidly figured out their identities. The company has previously confirmed the identities of the couple in a statement to the AP. ALSO READ: 'Baahubali' team takes a dig at viral Coldplay video Both of their profiles have been now removed from Astronomer's website and a November press release announcing her hiring has also been deleted. Astronomer was a previously obscure tech company based in New York. It provides big companies with a platform that helps them organize their data. Online streams of Coldplay's songs jumped 20% in the days after the video went viral, according to Luminate, an industry data and analytics company.

American HR exec caught on Coldplay cam resigns after her embrace with CEO went viral

New Indian Express

20 minutes ago

New Indian Express

American HR exec caught on Coldplay cam resigns after her embrace with CEO went viral

The female executive who was caught on camera embracing the CEO of her company at a Coldplay concert in a moment that went viral has resigned, according to news reports. Multiple news outlets reported that Kristin Cabot, the executive in charge of human resources at tech company Astronomer, has resigned. Her departure follows the resignation of CEO Andy Byron, who quit after the company said he was being put on leave pending an investigation. The episode resulted in endless memes, parody videos and screenshots of the pair's shocked faces filling social media feeds Cabot and Byron were caught by surprise when singer Chris Martin asked the cameras to scan the crowd for his 'Jumbotron Song' during the concert last week at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. They were shown cuddling and smiling, but when they saw themselves on the big screen, Cabot's jaw dropped, her hands flew to her face and she spun away from the camera while Byron ducked out of the frame. 'Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy,' Martin joked in video that spread quickly around the internet. When the video first spread online it wasn't immediately clear who they were, but online sleuths rapidly figured out their identities. The company has previously confirmed the identities of the couple in a statement to the AP. Both of their profiles have been now removed from Astronomer's website and a November press release announcing her hiring has also been deleted. Astronomer was a previously obscure tech company based in New York. It provides big companies with a platform that helps them organize their data. Online streams of Coldplay's songs jumped 20% in the days after the video went viral, according to Luminate, an industry data and analytics company.

Kristin Cabot: How did this political science student snag a top HR seat at Astronomer?

Time of India

32 minutes ago

Time of India

Kristin Cabot: How did this political science student snag a top HR seat at Astronomer?

Kristin Cabot's name has been making the rounds lately—not for a TED Talk or a tell-all memoir, but for reasons better left unsaid. According to media reports, Kristin Cabot quietly stepped down as Chief People Officer at AI firm Astronomer, just days after CEO Andy Byron 's own exit on July 19. No dramatic LinkedIn goodbye, no headline-grabbing statement, just a quiet reshuffle and her name vanishing from the org chart. But the real curiosity isn't just the timing. It's the backstory. How did a political science grad from Pennsylvania end up helming HR at a cutting-edge AI company? Cabot's climb through Silicon Valley's people ops world didn't follow the B-school-to-boardroom formula, and that's precisely what makes it worth a closer look. From political theory to people ops Cabot's journey didn't begin in a business school case study or a startup accelerator—it began at Gettysburg College, where she earned a BA in Political Science. There were no HR electives or coding bootcamps, just the classic liberal arts cocktail of term papers, power structures, and the occasional Machiavelli quote. Still, there's something oddly transferable about studying how systems hold (or fall) together. While her classmates were possibly preparing for think tanks or Capitol Hill internships, Cabot opted for human resources—not as a default, but as a strategic career play. And it paid off. Over the next two decades, she built a career focused on the unglamorous but essential business of managing people, personalities, and organisational chaos, especially in tech companies growing faster than their calendars could handle. HR roles, but with a Silicon Valley spin Cabot's HR resume doesn't need much embellishment. She's clocked in serious time at ObserveIT, Proofpoint, and most notably, Neo4j, which, for the uninitiated, is a graph database company (translation: it's techy and complicated, and engineers love it). At Neo4j, Cabot helped scale the company from 225 to over 900 employees, which is the corporate version of raising a pack of caffeinated toddlers during a sugar rush. She wasn't just there to manage hiring spreadsheets—she had to build and maintain a company culture that wouldn't combust under the pressure of hyper growth. That meant recruiting talent, calming nerves, smoothing egos, and making sure that when the company tripled in size, it didn't also triple in dysfunction. Astronomer : A brief, calculated orbit In November 2024, Cabot landed at Astronomer with big ambitions and even bigger Slack threads. She joined as Chief People Officer, HR's top chair, and stayed for eight and a half months. It was long enough to settle in, short enough to make everyone wonder what went down behind the scenes. No public comments were made about her departure. And true to form, Cabot didn't give interviews or post vague goodbye messages on LinkedIn. Just a quiet change in her headline, and she was gone. Culture builder, crisis handler So, what does a Chief People Officer actually do? In Cabot's case, it wasn't just about sending around surveys or updating leave policies. Her career has been built on designing 'award-winning cultures', which sounds abstract until you realize she's been doing it in environments where entire teams can burn out before the product hits beta. Her job was less about office perks and more about emotional triage—handling founders who haven't slept in a week, developers who think HR is a four-letter word, and legal teams who want everything said in triplicate. It's a role that requires diplomacy, ruthlessness, and a sixth sense for knowing when something's about to implode. And according to her track record, she's pretty good at it all. Cabot built a sustained, relevant, and quietly powerful career in tech without ever playing to the usual crowd. No Ivy League pedigree. No flashy founder status. Just a steady climb through the HR trenches of companies that were growing faster than they could handle, and somehow stayed (mostly) intact. TOI Education is on WhatsApp now. Follow us here . Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!