So you thought you had a bad week last week…
The CEO and Head of HR of a New England AI startup, Astronomer.io, just had their careers implode when they were caught in flagrante delicto on a stadium kiss cam during a Coldplay concert.
Andy Byron was already married to someone else. Kristin Cabot, was the Head of HR and caught messing around with her boss. Anyone who’s worked in corporate America knows there are SO MANY REASONS why this wasn’t smart, especially for C-Suite executives.
But why did it go viral? The internet loves a perfect storm and this had it all: novelty (most people don’t get busted so randomly and so publicly), visible guilt (their panic made them look guilty. If they’d stayed calm, nobody would have ever suspected), and schadenfreude (people love watching the powerful fall, especially when it’s their own fault).
These were the same executives who likely sat in boardrooms discussing employee conduct policies, signed off on anti-harassment training, and enforced the very standards they privately ignored. Had it been a city bus driver caught with a cashier, nobody would’ve cared.
The CEO will probably land somewhere new eventually. Track records building companies help you stay in power. But Cabot’s HR career? That’s a harder road back. She got caught doing THE ONE THING an HR person should not be caught doing. Trust is the entire job description and once that’s gone, there’s not much left.
Since the incident, Byron has resigned, his wife has changed back to her maiden name on social media, and Astronomy.io released the usual crisis-mangement statement, saying very little.
In the end, it’s not much of a story. Two people acted foolishly and got caught randomly. The internet got a good laugh. Most people hadn’t heard of the company before this. Life goes on.
The real lesson is about the nature of leadership.
There’s a scene in the classic 1981 film, “Excaliber”, when King Arthur’s wife, Queen Guinevere, is accused of adultery with his best friend, Sir Lancelot. One of his knights asks Arthur why he doesn’t just pardon her. He’s King after all, he can do anything. Arthur replies that he too must obey the law and give her a fair trial, “Otherwise they’re not laws, they’re just rules.”
That’s how leadership works. And once you forget that, you de facto stop being a leader.
Your integrity isn’t tested when it’s convenient. It’s tested when you think no one is watching. And sometimes the kiss cam finds you anyway.
