Latest news with #Astronomer
Hindustan Times
5 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Kristin Cabot's first spotting since Coldplay ‘kiss cam' row reveals key marriage detail
Kristin Cabot resigned as the HR chief of Astronomer days after the Colplay 'kiss cam' scandal broke. She and former CEO Andy Byron were spotted cuddling at the band's show in Boston earlier this month, sparking a massive 'cheating' and 'affair' row. Cabot was recently spotted, however, without a wedding ring, indicating her marriage might be in trouble. Kristin is married to Andrew Cabot, the owner of Privateer Rum.(X/@candybarr2009) The Daily Mail on Thursday published photos of Cabot watering plants outside her home. She was seen wearing a pink dress with an overcoat. The 52-year-old mother, barefoot, was standing next to the plant beds at her New Hampshire home. Read More: New video shows Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot cuddling moments before kiss-cam exposure The report further added that Cabot was not wearing her wedding ring. According to the New York Post, the former HR chief was previously married to Kenneth Thornby, but they divorced in 2022. Hindustan Times was unable to verify these details. The former couple reportedly shares at least one child. The Post noted that Cabot then married Privateer Rum CEO Andrew Cabot, who was in Japan during the Coldplay concert mishap. Astronomer on Thursday confirmed that its executive in charge of human resources has left. 'Kristin Cabot is no longer with Astronomer, she has resigned," spokesman Taylor Jones said in a brief statement. Her departure follows the resignation of CEO Andy Byron, who quit after the company said he was being put on leave pending an investigation. Read More: Kristin Cabot, husband Andrew took massive loan for luxury New Hampshire property; How much was it? Byron was married to a woman named Megan Kerrigan Byron. Kerrigan removed her last name from her social media profiles before deleting her accounts. 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. 'Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy,' Martin joked in video that spread quickly around the internet. (With AP inputs)
Los Angeles Times
5 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Why kiss-cam yuks are good for you and me
The nationwide laugh fest over the video of the kiss-cam couple ducking for cover at a Coldplay concert outside Boston — was that bad or good? The video of the canoodling couple needed only minutes to go viral, especially after internet sleuths identified the pair as Andy Byron, then chief executive of the East Coast tech firm Astronomer, and Astronomer's then-Human Resources head Kristin Cabot, who is not Byron's wife. The parody memes began immediately, and they were, frankly, hilarious. My two personal favorites were AI reenactments featuring, respectively, Lego minifigures and cats. (Yes, AI is good for something.) As might be expected, second thoughts and backlash quickly followed in the media. Readers and viewers were reminded of the substantial personal toll whenever infidelity gets a public airing, especially when it's aided by social media. In this instance, both participants resigned, and Byron has a wife and children who stand to be humiliated by the ridicule surrounding the incident. (Cabot's current marital status seems unclear, although there are reports that she was married to another CEO as of February.) At the left-leaning Guardian, contributor Miski Omar complained, 'Public shaming is now a participatory sport.' She asked, 'Was the doxing, the intense, invasive publishing of private details a proportionate response?' The right-leaning UnHerd was even more outraged. Columnist Matthew Gasda wrote, 'While turning someone into a meme might seem fun, it's severely undignified, and discards the customs and safeguards of a liberal society in order to participate in a sadistic pile-on.' I respectfully disagree. George Orwell wrote an essay in 1941 about the cheap, mildly smutty humorous postcards that the British working class of the time just loved. Most of the jokes were sex jokes, and they traded in broad, crude human caricatures: the adulterous husband on the seduction trail, the scolding wife with her fireplace poker, the voluptuous young thing who catches the husband's attention for a moment he'll later regret, a 'sub-world of smacked bottoms and scrawny mothers-in law,' as Orwell wrote. But as Orwell pointed out, the popularity of the lowbrow postcards reflected not a decadent society but 'a society that is still basically Christian' — that is, a society that still takes marriage, and marriage vows, seriously. It is only among the genuinely decadent — the cultural and intellectual elite — that you find elaborate rationalizations for fooling around behind your spouse's back: It's 'polyamory,' or it's 'having too much love to confine it to one person.' The rest of us can see infidelity for what it is — an all-too-relatable failing. And that's a healthy thing. We also know how quickly extramarital commitments can disintegrate when one party's self-interest is at stake. In the Coldplay video, Byron's unchivalrous jump away from Cabot (as she holds her face in her hands), once he realizes the camera is on him, leaves her standing by herself. (I don't think Byron's wife is suffering any opprobrium from this — quite the contrary. All the tweets I've seen express hope that she takes him to the cleaners if there is a divorce.) The reason we laugh at incidents like the Coldplay fiasco isn't that we think we're morally superior to the shamed pair. We know, deep in our hearts, that even those of us who are devoted to our spouses might be just a little bit tempted by the attractive new hire, or the good-looking exec who also owns a couple of multimillion-dollar houses. Our laughter is the laughter of recognition at the flawed and fallible human nature we share with everyone else on the planet. As Orwell wrote, people are capable of unselfish heroism when the occasion calls, but there is always 'the other element in man, the lazy, cowardly, debt-bilking adulterer who is inside all of us, [and who] can never be suppressed altogether.' It didn't help, of course, that Cabot's job description happened to be that of the HR lady whom everyone loves to hate, the one who cracks down on other employees' office romances (maybe not at Astronomer but elsewhere), and gets workers into trouble for complimenting the appearance of their colleagues. And how much privacy could Byron and Cabot have reasonably expected when they appeared together at a public concert, sitting in conspicuous seats? Kiss cams have been a feature of stadium events since the early 1980s, together with warning signs about videotaping, and they have occasionally caught out couples in relationships they didn't want others to know about — which ought to have served as a warning to exercise appropriate discretion. Naturally we shouldn't put children or other vulnerable people under the glare of a public spotlight, but as for the rest of us adults: If you don't want to be on a kiss cam, don't go to venues where there are kiss cams. So I say: No apologies for the jokes. They show that we as a society still have a robust respect for the institution of marriage and spousal loyalty. Besides, the memes have been awfully funny. Charlotte Allen is an arts and culture columnist for Quillette and film critic for Salmagundi.
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Coldplay concert Kiss cam scandal: Where was Kristin Cabot's husband while she was with Astronomer CEO Andy Byron?
Andrew Cabot , CEO of Privateer Rum and member of Boston's elite "Brahmin" family, was thousands of miles away on a business trip in Japan when a scandal erupted back home. His wife, Kristin Cabot , was caught on camera in an intimate moment with her boss, former Astronomer CEO Andy Byron , during a Coldplay concert — a moment that quickly went viral and triggered a storm of public scrutiny. The video, widely circulated online, shows Kristin and Byron in an apparent romantic embrace, ultimately leading to Byron's resignation from Astronomer. Kristin, who also works at Astronomer, has been placed on leave pending an internal investigation. Since the video surfaced, she has remained out of the public eye. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Insiders told the New York Post that both Andrew Cabot and Andy Byron's wife, Megan Kerrigan, were blindsided by the affair. One source simply remarked, 'Poor guy,' referring to Andrew. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 5 Books Warren Buffett Wants You to Read In 2025 Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo Despite the public image of a strong marriage — including a smiling family photo posted on Facebook in May 2024 — sources now claim the Cabots had been experiencing marital troubles for months and were considering separation. This revelation comes just five months after the couple purchased a $2.2 million home in Rye, New Hampshire. Kristin Cabot has served on Privateer Rum's advisory board since September 2020, a time when she was reportedly still married to her previous husband, further complicating her personal timeline. Live Events The scandal has sparked widespread conversation on social media, with memes and speculation dominating online discourse. It's also raised serious questions about workplace relationships and ethical conduct, especially with both Kristin and Byron holding high-level positions at the same company. The Cabot family's long-standing legacy in New England society — tied to the historic Boston Brahmin class — adds an extra layer of public intrigue. As Kristin remains silent and Astronomer's investigation continues, the public is left piecing together the story through leaks, insider reports, and social media posts. This scandal, blending personal betrayal, corporate fallout, and social media virality, serves as a modern cautionary tale about privacy, perception, and the consequences of public behavior in the digital age.
Globe and Mail
2 hours ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
After viral Coldplay kiss-cam video, advice for workers on when private relationships become your employer's concern
Is there still a line between your private affairs and accountability to your employer? In the age of viral videos and online sleuthing, what happens away from work can derail an executive's career as quickly as what happens in the boardroom. Just ask Andy Byron, the now former chief executive of tech company Astronomer, who abruptly resigned last week after being shown embracing the company's chief people officer, Kristin Cabot, on the Jumbotron at a Coldplay concert near Boston. The pair's frantic reaction after appearing on the big screen during a kiss-cam moment prompted Colplay's frontman, Chris Martin, to joke that they were probably having an affair. As it turns out, that appears to be true. Mr. Byron resigned shortly afterward, likely to avoid termination, and Ms. Cabot was placed on leave. The viral Coldplay kiss-cam video shows digital sleuthing can go too far The fallout raises legal questions: when do Canadian employers have a right, or even the obligation, to intervene in consensual relationships between employees, especially senior ones? When two senior executives are involved in an apparent affair, the reputational risk to their employer can be significant. It calls into question their judgment, integrity and values – and, by extension, their ability to lead. Key figures such as a CEO or chief people officer are often closely tied to a company's brand and public image. This places them in a fiduciary role, meaning they are legally obligated to prioritize the company's best interests. If a fiduciary's private conduct becomes a matter of public scrutiny, it can damage the company's reputation, sometimes irreparably. As a result, employers often react swiftly when executives face public allegations of misconduct or online shaming, even if unrelated to their positions. Despite that those allegations may later be disproven, damage or potential damage to a company's reputation alone may sometimes be great enough to justify immediate dismissal, potentially without severance. Even consensual office romances can lead to disputes, sexual harassment complaints or retaliation claims. Where one employee holds power over the other, such as in a reporting relationship or with influence over promotions or compensation, the employer's right to intervene becomes more evident. These relationships carry a high risk of perceived favouritism during the relationship or retaliation if it ends. Many companies treat such relationships between managers and subordinates as serious business risks and have established policies requiring disclosure so appropriate steps can be taken to protect the company and those involved from misconduct claims. Some companies even go further and prohibit such relationships altogether. If a company adopts such a policy, then any violation can be treated as a disciplinary matter and, depending on the circumstances and severity of the violation, can also lead to cause for dismissal without severance. In the absence of a formal workplace dating policy, many companies have detailed codes of conduct that attempt to regulate workplace behaviour. Those codes of conduct are usually broad enough to capture situations of an actual or perceived conflict of interest, which can often arise when a senior employee becomes romantically involved with a more junior one. In a high-profile case last year, the Royal Bank of Canada dismissed its chief financial officer for just cause after being tipped off to an alleged affair with a subordinate. The bank claimed she breached its code of conduct by engaging in an undisclosed personal relationship that allegedly resulted in preferential treatment, including raises and promotions. Both parties denied the affair and any favouritism, but the case will likely turn on whether the code of conduct was breached and whether the breach was serious enough to justify the bank's reaction. How employees respond to internal investigations also matters. When a complaint involves harassment, discrimination or retaliation, employers are legally required to investigate. That usually starts with interviews and fact-finding missions. If an employee is dishonest during this process, refuses to answer questions or retaliates against someone who made a complaint, that alone is often grounds for dismissal for cause without severance even if the initial infraction would not have led to that result. The key takeaways for employees are that engaging in a consensual relationship with a colleague can become their employer's business, particularly if they are in a senior role or are having a romantic relationship with a more junior employee. Concealing that relationship, especially where it may give rise to a real or perceived conflict of interest or violates company policy, may be grounds for termination without severance. Employees in positions of authority and influence are held to an even higher standard. They must assume their personal and private interactions, even in a dark corner at a Coldplay concert, are not beyond their employer's scrutiny. Daniel A. Lublin is a partner at Whitten & Lublin, representing clients in workplace legal disputes. He can be reached at Dan@
Entrepreneur
3 hours ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Astronomer HR Head Kristin Cabot Resigns After Viral Scandal
Kristin Cabot, who was the company's chief people officer, has left the tech startup. Unicorn tech startup Astronomer has confirmed that both of the executives involved in the now-infamous Coldplay concert kiss-cam scandal are no longer with the company. Former CEO Andy Byron resigned last week after he and the company's Chief People Officer, Kristin Cabot, were publicly caught on camera in a not-work-appropriate moment on the big screen. The encounter went mega-viral and has led to an endless supply of memes – and the resignations of two executives. Related: Astronomer's New CEO Addresses the Viral Coldplay 'Kiss Cam' Fiasco: 'Unusual and Surreal for Our Team' CNBC is reporting that Cabot has also departed the company. "Kristin Cabot is no longer with Astronomer; she has resigned," a company spokesperson told CNBC Thursday in an email. Last week, Astronomer co-founder and interim CEO Pete DeJoy wrote on LinkedIn that it's been "unusual and surreal" for the team at the private data infrastructure startup since the scandal went viral around the world. Related: The CEO of Google's AI Initiative Is Worried About 2 Things, and Neither Is AI Replacing Jobs "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," DeJoy wrote. "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." Join top CEOs, founders and operators at the Level Up conference to unlock strategies for scaling your business, boosting revenue and building sustainable success.
