CEO’s Coldplay moment is a textbook fiasco

With Coldplaygate on track to become one of the most viral moments of the year, you would think this is the first time in history that a CEO has gotten busted for having what certainly seems to be an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate. Well, let me tell you — this is far from the truth. As someone who covers corporate America, CEOs doing inappropriate things with inappropriate people has turned into its own mini-beat. Over time, I’ve learned a lot — too much! — about the indiscretions of those in charge. In some ways, the Andy Byron/Astronomer fiasco is a textbook case. But it also reveals the way our hyper-online world has transformed how CEOs — and company boards — need to think about the line between bosses’ public and private lives.

There’s a reason CEOs who are smart people do dumb things and end up in Byron’s position. As I’ve written before, power can make people believe they will only ever reap the upsides of risk-taking behavior. For example, people with a higher sense of power are more likely to believe they’ll avoid hitting turbulence on an airplane or running into a dangerous snake on vacation. One can see how they might also think they won’t be spotted on the jumbotron at a Coldplay concert, despite the evidence to the contrary. Boards have a responsibility to pay attention to a CEO’s personal life because it often mirrors their professional conduct. After the Ashley Madison hack in 2015, researchers had a robust new data set to help them study the connection between cheating at home and cheating at work. One study found that companies run by the 47 CEOs and 48 CFOs included in that database (the vast majority of them married) were two times as likely to have had a financial misstatement or involvement in a class action securities lawsuit.

Ultimately, I’ve come to believe that there is just no such thing as a private life when you’re the big boss. This has been increasingly the case for years, but the Astronomer mess illustrates how, in the era of social media and smartphone video, it’s become more literal. For better or worse, it’s impossible for any of us to assume the expectation of privacy when the cameras are always on and the internet is always watching. If you are a CEO who doesn’t recognise this as the current state of affairs, you are probably too reckless or delusional for the job. In fact, this is the part of the story that does suggest we’ve entered a brave new world. In the olden days, a CEO might get fired for an inappropriate office romance after a whistleblower sent in a tip. An investigation would ensue. A statement would be drafted. More often than not, the company would have a chance to strategize before the news went live.

In this case, we can assume the Astronomer board found out about its CEO’s misbehaviour at the same time as everyone else. It took the board more than 24 hours to respond to the jumbotron video and another 24 passed before Byron resigned. That created a vacuum, which the internet was only too happy to fill. Online commenters firebombed the LinkedIn accounts of both Byron and and his jumbotron costar, Astronomer Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot (both ultimately deactivated their accounts). They misidentified another concertgoer as the company’s VP of people, also leading her to take down her LinkedIn page. They found Byron’s wife on Facebook. They wrote a fake statement from Byron, and it made his name the most popular trending term on Google. They bet on Polymarket on whether he would get divorced or lose his job. They created thousands of hours worth of memes.

You can’t really say the company lost control of the narrative since it never had it to begin with. A playbook does not exist for a CEO’s indiscretions being exposed in such an instantaneous, public and humiliating way. But this is a sign to corporate boards that they better start preparing one. I also see something new in the joyful schadenfreude that greeted the video. Would it have reached the same level of virality if it featured two regular Joes — rather than two C-level executives? Part of what’s made the memes and the drama so delicious is the way the public is feeling about CEOs right now. The people in charge are cracking down on the rules for the rest of us while they seemingly flaunt them. They want people back at the office, producing more and working longer hours, all while monitoring their every keystroke and instilling fear that AI will take their jobs. Meanwhile, they’re off at the Coldplay concert breaking HR policy with the head of HR. If you’re a company that doesn't want to see your CEO end up as the week’s top trending term on Google, the Astronomer saga is a warning to heed the old lessons about why your executive’s personal behaviour matters — and these new ones, too.