The chief executive of a US tech firm whose apparent affair with a board colleague was exposed on a video screen at a Coldplay concert earlier this week has resigned.
New York software company Astronomer confirmed on Saturday that Andy Byron had tendered his resignation after being caught on camera during the concert in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on Wednesday with his arms wrapped around a woman.
In footage that quickly went viral, Byron, who is married, can be seen ducking down in panic while the woman, who internet sleuths swiftly identified as Astronomer’s chief people officer Kristin Cabot, turns away and shields her face.
“Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy,” joked Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, who usually dedicates a few lines of a song to whoever the camera picks out in the crowd.
What have Astronomer said?
“Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding,” the company said in a statement shared on LinkedIn on Saturday. “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met.”
Videos of the incident have garnered millions of views on TikTok and other social media platforms, giving rise to memes discussing everything from the folly of having an affair at a high-profile concert, to the hypocrisy of an HR representative seemingly caught in a workplace relationship.
“The craziest thing is about the Astronomer CEO cheating scandal is it was the HR lady,” wrote one X user. “The person who would warn you against fraternizing with coworkers.”
According to research by tabloid papers including the New York Post and the Daily Mail, Cabot, who has also been placed on indefinite leave while Astronomer conducts an internal investigation, is also married.
Tech CEO Byron: internet victim or asking for trouble?
“They probably would have got away with it if they hadn’t reacted,” Alison Taylor, a clinical associate professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, told the Associated Press (AP), explaining the global schadenfreude by saying the viral incident hit a classic nerve around “leaders acting like the rules don’t apply to them.”
Most concert and event venues do inform visitors either in terms and conditions, on tickets or on physical signs at the location that audience members could be filmed.
“When you visit our location or attend or participate in an event at our location, we may capture your image, voice and/or likeness, including through the use of CCTV cameras and/or when we film or photograph you in a public location,” reads the online privacy policy of the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, which hosted the Coldplay gig.
Nevertheless, the incident has also highlighted just how quickly and easily almost anybody can be identified on the internet, especially given the prevalence of social media and artificial intelligence.
“It’s a little bit unsettling how easily we can be identified with biometrics, how our faces are online, how social media can track us and how the internet has gone from being a place of interaction, to a gigantic surveillance system,” Mary Angela Bock, an associate professor in the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism and Media, told AP.
“When you think about it, we are being surveilled by our social media. They’re tracking us in exchange for entertaining us.”
It would appear that “Something Just Like This” has happened to Andy Byron, who must now wish he could turn back the “Clocks” on this “Rush Of Blood To The Head” and had not taken his board colleague for Coldplay cuddles in the first place.
Edited by: Wesley Dockery
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