As anticipated last week, Kristin Cabot lost her job after the purportedly married HR chief of tech startup Astronomer was seen canoodling with Andy Byron, the married CEO of her company, on a jumbotron during a Coldplay show.
Cabot’s resignation as Chief People Officer at Astronomer was verified Thursday by a representative of the AI startup, according to People.She and Byron went to a Coldplay show at Gillette Stadium, which is close to Boston, on July 16, more than a week ago. Frontman Chris Martin singled them out when they appeared on the kiss cam, looking really hot for one another. When he and the other 55,000 fans in the stadium saw the allegedly adulterous pair was on the big screen, he clumsily joked that they might be having an affair. They made an instant effort to cover their faces and disappear from view.
As it happened, it was stated that Byron and Cabot were both married to other persons. Previously unknown, they were thrown into an extraordinary media frenzy right away, which has resulted in them being the focus of late-night jokes and internet memes, including one involving Donald Trump. Neither has addressed the scandal in public.
Employment attorneys expected that Cabot wouldn’t be able to continue in her position for very long when Byron, who is said to be a father of two, submitted his resignation to the board of directors last weekend.
This is due to the fact that she was in charge of the human resources division, which normally manages and supervises disputes involving romantic relationships at work.
She is in charge of HR, therefore it’s awful! William Cafaro, an employment lawyer in New York City, told the New York Post last week. She and the CEO are supposedly having an illicit affair. In essence, how much worse of an HR gaffe could you make?
She will very certainly lose her job, in my opinion, since it is inexcusable for an HR professional who is having an affair with the CEO to dictate or make disciplinary decisions for other staff members. “That’s absurd,” Cafaro added.
In a statement titled “Moving Forward at Astronomer,” Pete DeJoy, the company’s new temporary CEO, addressed the situation on Monday.
Few businesses, let alone startups in our little sector of the data and AI world, ever see the level of media attention that the events of the last few days have garnered, according to DeJoy. Although I would never have hoped for it to happen this way, Astronomer is now a household name, and the attention has been strange and surreal for our team.
However, he claimed that Astronomer’s staff has never shied away from a challenge; in the nearly ten years since we started this company, we have been put to the test numerous times, and each time we have come out stronger. He claimed that Astronomer was founded by individuals who are passionate about doing things well and who live to overcome challenging challenges. He declared that he was entering the position of CEO with a complete dedication to caring for our employees and meeting the needs of our clients.
