Tech firm CEO resigns after controversy over video captured at Coldplay live performance

The IT firm CEO captured in a extensively circulated video displaying him embracing an worker at a Coldplay live performance has resigned.

Andy Byron resigned from his job as CEO of Cincinnati-based Astronomer Inc., in response to an announcement posted on LinkedIn by the corporate on Saturday (July 19, 2025).

“Astronomer is dedicated to the values and tradition which have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are anticipated to set the usual in each conduct and accountability, and not too long ago, that commonplace was not met,” the corporate mentioned in its put up on LinkedIn.

The transfer comes a day after the corporate mentioned that Mr. Byron had been positioned on go away and the board of administrators had launched a proper investigation into the jumbotron incident, which went viral. An organization spokesman later confirmed in an announcement to AP that it was Mr. Byron and Astronomer chief individuals officer Kristin Cabot within the video.

The brief video clip exhibits Mr. Byron and Ms. Cabot as captured on the jumbotron at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, throughout a Coldplay live performance on Wednesday (July 16, 2025).

Lead singer Chris Martin requested the cameras to scan the gang for his “Jumbotron Track,” when he sings a number of strains in regards to the individuals the digicam lands on.

“Both they’re having an affair or they’re simply very shy,” he joked.

Web sleuths recognized the person because the chief government officer of a U.S.-based firm and the lady as its chief individuals officer.

Pete DeJoy, Astronomer’s cofounder and chief product officer, has been tapped as interim CEO whereas the corporate conducts a seek for Byron’s successor.

It’s straightforward to overlook, however most live performance venues have indicators informing the viewers that they could possibly be filmed through the occasion. Search for them on the partitions while you arrive and across the bar areas or bathrooms. It’s widespread apply particularly when bands like to make use of performances for music movies or live performance movies.

The venue on this case, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, additionally has a privateness coverage on-line which states: “Once you go to our location or attend or take part in an occasion at our location, we might seize your picture, voice and/or likeness, together with by means of using CCTV cameras and/or after we movie or {photograph} you in a public location.”

“They in all probability would have gotten away with it in the event that they hadn’t reacted,” mentioned Alison Taylor, a medical affiliate professor at New York College’s Stern Faculty of Enterprise. And by the point the alleged identities emerged on social media, it hit a basic nerve round “leaders appearing like the principles don’t apply to them,” she added.

Nonetheless, Mr. Taylor and others stress how shortly such a video result in an web search to seek out the individuals concerned — and notice that it’s essential to do not forget that such “doxing” isn’t simply reserved for well-known individuals. Past somebody merely recognizing a well-known face and spreading the phrase, technological advances, such because the rising adoption of synthetic intelligence, has made it simpler and quicker general to seek out nearly anybody in a viral video at this time.

“It’s just a little bit unsettling how simply we could be recognized with biometrics, how our faces are on-line, how social media can monitor us — and the way the web has gone from being a spot of interplay, to a big surveillance system,” mentioned Mary Angela Bock, an affiliate professor within the College of Texas at Austin’s Faculty of Journalism and Media. “When you concentrate on it, we’re being surveilled by our social media. They’re monitoring us in change for entertaining us.”