Astronomer CEO Pete DeJoy shares ‘Moving Forward’ note on Andy Byron’s Coldplay scandal, says: We’re here because …

Astronomer’s new CEO, Pete DeJoy, addressed the recent Coldplay “kiss cam” scandal, noting that the New York-based AI company has gained widespread recognition. DeJoy, a co-founder, assumed leadership after former CEO Andy Byron stepped down. Byron resigned following public attention from being caught on the kiss cam with Astronomer’s HR head, Kristin Cabot, at a Coldplay concert in Boston. During the incident, Byron was seen embracing Cabot, both attempting to shield their faces from the camera as it panned on them.Their reaction made the band’s frontman Chris Martin to joke: “Either they’re having an affair or they’re very shy.” The video quickly went viral, with Astronomer leading all headlines. The Internet also went wild on memes of the two. Late last week, Astronomer announced the resignation of Andy Byron as CEO and announced founder Pete DeJoy as the new CEO. On what appears to be his first working Monday, Pete DeJoy seems to have started the day with a note on Andy Byron scandal and the way forward for the company.

Here’s Astronomer CEO Pete DeJoy’s LinkedIn post:

The new interim CEO of Astronomer broke his silence on the Coldplay “kiss cam” scandal — and gushed that the small, New York-based AI firm is now a “household name.” Brooklynite Pete DeJoy, the company’s co-founder, took the reins at Astronomer over the weekend after its disgraced boss Andy Byron resigned after being caught on the kiss cam cozying up with Kristin Cabot, the company’s head of HR.Byron, after being spotted on the kiss cam with his arms wrapped around Cabot at last week’s Coldplay concert in Boston, literally ducked out of view as Cabot turned her back to the camera and rushed to cover her face with her hands.

Astronomer CEO’s moving forward note

Over the weekend, I stepped into the role of Interim CEO at Astronomer, a company that I’ve proudly poured my entire professional life into helping build.Over the past few years, our business has experienced incredible growth. What was once a mission to help companies with Apache Airflow has turned into so much more. We’re privileged to sit at the center of our customers’ data & AI strategy, powering data pipelines behind in-game analytics of your favorite sports team, LLM powered chatbots for customer support, training AI for self-driving cars, and every mission-critical process in between.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. 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.At Astronomer we have never shied away from challenges; a near-decade of building this business has tested us time and time again, and each time we’ve emerged stronger. From starting a software company in Cincinnati, Ohio, to keeping the lights on through the collapse of the bank that held all our cash, to scaling from 30 to 300 people during a global pandemic that demanded we do it all without ever being in the same room.And yet, we’re still here.We’re here because Astronomers are built by people who live to solve hard problems, stay late to fix what’s broken, and care deeply about doing things the right way. We’re here because our customers trust us with their most ambitious data & AI projects. And, most importantly, we’re here because the mission is bigger than any one moment.I’m stepping into this role with a wholehearted commitment to taking care of our people and delivering for our customers. Astronomers foundation remains strong, built around the thriving Apache Airflow community. Our opportunity to build a DataOps platform for the age of AI remains massive. And our story is very much still being written.To our team: thank you for your resilience & commitment to building something great. And to our community and customers: thank you for your trust. We won’t let you down.