Not only is today a tough day for Astronomer CEO Andy Byron… it’s a challenging time for anyone with the same name.
Every so often, a bad apple goes and ruins a name for the rest of the world. Sometimes it’s more serious, like anyone with the last name Epstein. Other times it’s more lighthearted, like someone being named “Alexa” before Amazon made that the name of their smart devices. In both situations, having a name that’s associated with something else can be burdensome.
One business owner in the Greater Dublin area is currently experiencing that.
I’m sure you’ve heard the news that a tech CEO was caught red-handed (allegedly) cheating on his spouse at a Coldplay concert. The story – albeit a very personal one at the root of things – has captured the intention of the social media world. Everyone wants to know more about Andy Byron and his alleged affair with Astronomer’s human resources chief Kristin Cabot.
If you haven’t seen the video already, the viral clips shows Byron and his work subordinate cuddled up at the concert, and getting exposed by the jumbotron camera operator. They quickly separated and tried to hide their faces, but the damage was already done. Social media is forever, and one person just so happened to be recording the proceedings when it all went down. And it’s wild to hear Coldplay frontman Chris Martin narrate what was unfolding in real time:
“Oh look at these two. Oh come on, you’re okay. What? Either they’re having an affair, or they’re just very shy.”
https://twitter.com/t0nit0ne/status/1945801768937333147?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1945801768937333147%7Ctwgr%5E9143d998385ff12a28ed189da6d71bcb4ecb608c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.whiskeyriff.com%2F2025%2F07%2F17%2Fwife-of-cheating-tech-ceo-andy-byron-deleted-the-last-name-byron-from-her-facebook-page-before-deactivating-her-account-altogether%2F
Just brutal… and I don’t feel bad for them at all. I only feel bad for Byron’s wife and his family.
That video prompted social media sleuths to really start digging into information that’s available on the internet. They soon found that the CEO’s wife had dropped her husband’s last name from her Facebook page, and it appears that they bombarded Andy Byron’s LinkedIn page with so much hate that he deactivated it altogether (not before some posts were found of Byron gushing about Cabot when she was hired).
But people continue to look online for the two culprits in this crazy story, which has made life hard for anyone that’s also named Andy Byron. A motion graphic designer with the same name now pops up first when you search the Astronomer CEO’s name on LinkedIn, and he’s done his best to get ahead of all of this by changing his job title on his profile to read like this:
“NOT THE GUY FROM THE COLDPLAY GIG!! Owner/Creative Director at Stylo Motion Design.”
Well played Andy Byron, well played.
He took things a step further by putting out a post that was an absolute masterclass in taking advantage of the situation. The non-tech-CEO Andy Byron condemned the Astronomer CEO Andy Byron while also seamlessly plugging his own profession, and I’m really happy that he was able to make the most of what’s had to be a challenging name day for him:
“No, this isn’t me. I wouldn’t be caught dead at a Coldplay concert… I’m the Andy Byron who makes videos for big screens, not the one who gets caught on them. If you want to make video content that goes viral for the right reasons, let’s connect.”
