Astronomer has called in the spin-doctor.
The company whose name has been a bit of a punchline in the last week is trying to quickly brush the whole “Our CEO was exposed on camera cheating with one of his subordinates” thing under the rug. Former Astronomer CEO Andy Byron was allegedly caught cheating on his wife with the organization’s human resources chief Kristin Cabot, and the viral video – which is the textbook definition of being caught red-handed – led to Byron resigning over the weekend.
If you haven’t seen the actual video already (do you live under a rock?), the viral clip from last week shows the jumbotron camera operator honing in on Byron and his work subordinate cuddled up at the concert. They quickly separated and tried to hide their faces, but it was too little, too late… and honestly just confirmed that they were guilty.
Coldplay’s lead singer Chris Martin narrated what was unfolding in real time, and seemingly figured out what was happening in a matter of seconds:
“Oh look at these two. Oh come on, you’re okay. What? Either they’re having an affair, or they’re just very shy.”
Since then, the Coldplay frontman has been a lot more careful showing people up on the big screen.
One person that won’t be showing up on the jumbotron in the future – or the “Meet the Team” page on Astronomer’s website – is Andy Byron. As I stated earlier, he stepped down from his position as CEO, basically because what other choice was there? You can’t stay on as the CEO after a viral scandal like that.
So Pete DeJoy, the co-founder of Astronomer, has stepped in as the Interim CEO as the company tries to move past all of the controversy. He put out a statement on his LinkedIn page called “Moving Forward at Astronomer” addressing the scandal and the fact that he’d be stepping into the role of CEO temporarily.
And at one point in DeJoy’s writing, he basically called the scandal a blessing in disguise:
What a wild, shameless response to all of the controversy. I’m not an expert on how to write apology and moving forward statements following your company becoming a global meme, but I’d say bragging about how people are talking about Astronomer now is a little bit misguided. Any publicity is good publicity though, right?
I’m starting to think this whole thing was just a big, elaborate rouse so that comedian Nathan Fielder can announce he’s bringing back his hit series Nathan For You.
