Coldplay kiss‑cam made Astronomer a household name, says new CEO
What's the story
Pete DeJoy, co-founder of data and AI start-up Astronomer, has been appointed as the interim CEO. This decision comes after former CEO Andy Byron's resignation over a viral video controversy. The video showed Byron and Astronomer's Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot on a 'kiss cam' at a Coldplay concert near Boston. In his first statement as interim CEO, DeJoy acknowledged the "unusual and surreal" media attention on the company in recent days.
Company evolution
Priority to support the team and maintain customer trust: DeJoy
DeJoy, who has been instrumental in Astronomer's journey since its inception, said he took over as interim CEO "over the weekend." "While I would never have wished for it to happen like this, Astronomer is now a household name," he said. The new CEO emphasized his priority is to support the team and maintain customer trust. Founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, Astronomer started as a platform for organizations to leverage Apache Airflow—an open-source workflow management platform for data engineering pipelines.
Company outlook
DeJoy reincarnates from the
DeJoy recalled Astronomer's past challenges, from banking crises to scaling during a pandemic. He said these were tests of resilience that the company has always passed. DeJoy also hinted at a renewed focus on values and internal trust at Astronomer. He said, "Astronomer is 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."
Mission continuity
Astronomer's mission remains intact amid leadership change
Despite the noise around the leadership change, DeJoy assured that Astronomer's mission remains unchanged. He said, "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."