Astronomer Hires Coldplay Lead Singer's Ex-Wife as 'Temporary' Spokesperson: Gwyneth Paltrow (bbc.com) 89
The "Chief People Officer" of dataops company Astronomer resigned this week from her position after apparently being caught on that "Kiss Cam" at a Coldplay concert with the company's CEO, reports the BBC. That CEO has also resigned, with Astronomer appointing their original co-founder and chief product officer as the new interim CEO.
UPDATE (7/26): In an unexpected twist, Astronomer put out a new video Friday night starring... Gwyneth Paltrow.
Actress/businesswoman Paltrow "was married to Coldplay's frontman Chris Martin for 13 years," reports CBS News. In the video posted Friday, Paltrow says she was hired by Astronomer as a "very temporary" spokesperson.
"Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days," Paltrow begins, "and they wanted me to answer the most common ones..."
As the question "OMG! What the actual f" begins appearing on the screen, Paltrow responds "Yes, Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow, unifying the experience of running data, ML, and AI pipelines at scale. We've been thrilled so many people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation." (Paltrow also mentions the company's upcoming Beyond Analytics dataops conference in September.)
Astronomer is still grappling with unintended fame after the "Kiss Cam" incident. ("Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy," Coldplay's lead singer had said during the viral video, in which the startled couple hurries to hide off-camera). The incident raised privacy concerns, as it turns out both people in the video were in fact married to someone else, though the singer did earlier warn the crowd "we're going to use our cameras and put some of you on the big screen," according to CNN. The New York Post notes the woman's now-deleted LinkedIn account showed that she has also served as an "advisory board member" at her husband's company since September of 2020. The Post cites a source close to the situation who says the woman's husband "was in Asia for a few weeks," returning to America right as the video went viral. Kristin and Andrew Cabot married sometime after her previous divorce was finalized in 2022. The source said there had been little indication of any trouble in paradise before the Coldplay concert video went viral. "The family is now saying they have been having marriage troubles for several months and were discussing separating..."
The video had racked up 127 million videos by yesterday, notes Newsweek, adding that the U.K. tabloid the Daily Mail apparently took photos outside the woman's house, reporting that she does not appear to be wearing a wedding ring.
UPDATE (7/26): In an unexpected twist, Astronomer put out a new video Friday night starring... Gwyneth Paltrow.
Actress/businesswoman Paltrow "was married to Coldplay's frontman Chris Martin for 13 years," reports CBS News. In the video posted Friday, Paltrow says she was hired by Astronomer as a "very temporary" spokesperson.
"Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days," Paltrow begins, "and they wanted me to answer the most common ones..."
As the question "OMG! What the actual f" begins appearing on the screen, Paltrow responds "Yes, Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow, unifying the experience of running data, ML, and AI pipelines at scale. We've been thrilled so many people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation." (Paltrow also mentions the company's upcoming Beyond Analytics dataops conference in September.)
Astronomer is still grappling with unintended fame after the "Kiss Cam" incident. ("Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy," Coldplay's lead singer had said during the viral video, in which the startled couple hurries to hide off-camera). The incident raised privacy concerns, as it turns out both people in the video were in fact married to someone else, though the singer did earlier warn the crowd "we're going to use our cameras and put some of you on the big screen," according to CNN. The New York Post notes the woman's now-deleted LinkedIn account showed that she has also served as an "advisory board member" at her husband's company since September of 2020. The Post cites a source close to the situation who says the woman's husband "was in Asia for a few weeks," returning to America right as the video went viral. Kristin and Andrew Cabot married sometime after her previous divorce was finalized in 2022. The source said there had been little indication of any trouble in paradise before the Coldplay concert video went viral. "The family is now saying they have been having marriage troubles for several months and were discussing separating..."
The video had racked up 127 million videos by yesterday, notes Newsweek, adding that the U.K. tabloid the Daily Mail apparently took photos outside the woman's house, reporting that she does not appear to be wearing a wedding ring.
Re:Cheating on your wife is a bad idea (Score:5, Funny)
Catholic values? You like to fuck altar boys? Congrats, this is a crime here.
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Of all the kiss-cam memes on the internet, I have not yet seen that one. But the world needs it.
Re: Cheating on your wife is a bad idea (Score:5, Informative)
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Dude, just let it go already.
Clinton isn't in office any more and JFK got shot in the head.
Obvious Distraction - Hire former movie star (Score:2)
1) Cheating behavior, those responsible for corporate policy violate it themselves
2) Bad publicity for the company
3) Quick, get someone who was a famous movie star 25 years ago....
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After the scandal, the Catholic Church cleaned up their act and rates of abuse sharply declined. Every person who interacts with a child in any capacity - parents, youth ministers, and yes priests - must follow strict guidelines and is monitored.
By contrast, 10% of all public school chlidren will be sexually molested or abused by a public school teacher or administrator.
Best estimate is a 'factor of 100 t
Re: Cheating on your wife is a bad idea (Score:5, Informative)
Catholic values? So you believe women should be excluded from positions of power?
When you made this post, you forgot the most important Catholic value: shame.
Re: Cheating on your wife is a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, he forgot a foundational Catholic/Christian value:
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."
Matthew 7:1-5
I'm no Christian, not even the least bit religious, but there has seldom been a better proclamation of charity and forgiveness than this passage from Matthew.
Re: Cheating on your wife is a bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Imagine being downvoted for posting "judge not lest ye be judged."
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Imagine being downvoted for posting, "Catholicism is a misogynistic cult!"
Instead, I should have used mod points to +1 the AC who called out Catholicism as an international pedophile ring.
Re: Cheating on your wife is a bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm an atheist, so in one sense I have no horse in this race. But while there's no denying the Church hierarchy protected pedophiles, and for a lot longer than even many Catholics would like to believe, it's not a central tenet of the Catholic faith. The Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, the Theokotos, the Ascension, Papal Infallibility when speaking ex cathedra, and the soteriological nature of the Church, those are core tenets.
And so is Matthew 7:5, which is in Catholic and in most Christian traditions the very heart of Christian ethics.
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I kid at the Catholics' expense, but only because I think they deserve it.
Re: Cheating on your wife is a bad idea (Score:2)
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Or maybe the guy isn't having affairs and is (by the standards of the bible verse you just quoted) well within his right to make rather passive and harmless suggestions about not getting caught on camera having an affair.
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you forgot the most important Catholic value: shame.
You were 1/2 there! It's actually shame and GUILT!! And I'm NOT a Catholic, I got this tidbit of info from a Catholic Girl ;)
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Great job guys! As an atheist former altar-boy, I'm loving the critique of Catholicism.
Now do Islam! I dare you :-)
Re:Cheating on your wife is a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
The only sin that's anyone's business is that the CEO was having an intimate relationship with a subordinate, and the only people that matters to is their coworkers, the board and the shareholders.
1. The coworkers, because these kinds of relationships can actually be very demoralizing. Even the perception of favoritism, whether real or not, has a terrible effect on everyone else.
2. The board because it is their fiduciary duty to protect the company's reputation and eliminate to whatever extent possible any liability that can come from such a relationship (superiors having intimate relationships with subordinates opens up a number of issues surrounding sexual coercion and the risks involved if the relationship turns sour).
3. The shareholders, because reputational harm and lawsuits can negatively impact their investment.
Nowhere in there is your tender sensibilities a consideration, beyond the very limited context that you might be a customer or advertiser who might get turned off. Even if that's true, being self-righteous and vicariously inferring your superior morality largely erases that, and as a Catholic, I'm sure it's at this juncture that you should ponder your Savior's own words at Matthew 7:5 before you delight in building yourself up on an Internet forum at the expense of fellow human beings that made a sad and not terribly uncommon error in judgment.
For myself, I actually feel very sorry for them. Beyond the damage to their reputations and careers, they are human beings just like me, capable of great joy and then great humiliation and shame, and for them, this awful coupling, even if completely their own responsibility, all happened while the rest of the world decided amongst all the real and tangible problems, to mock them. I viscerally hate it when anyone is publicly humiliated, even if they are entirely responsible for the humiliation.
Re: Cheating on your wife is a bad idea (Score:2, Interesting)
You seem pretty sure of yourself. Why should I give a care for the three groups you think have a stake? You know none of those people. They are no more your concern than anyone else in this story. Forget them all, and move on.
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I'm having a hard time parsing what about my post you have object to.
Re: Cheating on your wife is a bad idea (Score:1)
Re:Cheating on your wife is a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
and the only people that matters to is their coworkers, the board and the shareholders.
It doesn't matter to their (soon-to-be ex) spouses? Or their kids?
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Pretty sure that the married CEO with 3 children also has to answer to his wife and children, whom the affair most definitely harms, and presumably HR Karen's husband is also harmed. Not surprising you managed to miss those though.
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If the guy's gonna act like that, getting married in the first place was probably the mistake. Some people are not very good at being monogamous.
Same goes for the HR lady.
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Especially when it is done in public on video. But I am just an aging Gen X'er with Catholic values!
Even worse is going to a Coldplay concert. Worse than cheating on your wife. Shows that you have much deficiency in your character that you somehow ended up in that situation.
Coldplay should know better than to put their audience on the jumbotron. Every single person there would be embarrassed to be known to have attended a Coldplay concert.
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More importantly, the HR bitch had a long time subordinate who acted as her right hand through multiple HR positions at different companies buy the tickets using company funds and the subordinate went with them to the concert to cover for the affair. THAT was why they were fired. Not the affair.
No one cared about their affair. (Score:5, Informative)
What people got pissy about was the sheer public hypocrisy of a head of HR who could not follow the same rules she expected the rank and file to adhere to, and the same from the CEO who enacts those rules.
Re: No one cared about their affair. (Score:3)
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LOL. No, literally no one cared about policy of a company and no one got pissy either. Now reset your AI, and stop hallucinating non-existent outrage.
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Pretty sure that's mandatory for anyone in HR.
Its more a narcissist thing .... (Score:1)
What people got pissy about was the sheer public hypocrisy of a head of HR who could not follow the same rules she expected the rank and file to adhere to, and the same from the CEO who enacts those rules.
It's kind of like a Governor going out to dinner with friends at a fancy restaurant in the middle of covid, and they aren't wearing masks. While at the same time telling people to pull their mask back up while they chew. Because, science. Yes, governor Newsome of California did both.
In other words, its more of an entitled narcissist thing, than a CEO or Governor things. Although there is some correlation, narcissists like those jobs.
Re: Its more a narcissist thing .... (Score:1)
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You mean like every republican who has their mistress get an abortion? Christian morals on display.
Do you imagine narcissists actually believe in a party platform, even theirs, whether Repub or Dem? No, its basically always rules are for us, and not for them. What rules they champion are nothing more than what is more likely to get them elected.
Re: Its more a narcissist thing .... (Score:2)
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If the CEO is a narcissist, he should exploit the situation, get paid to go on talk shows as an "anti-cheating" proponent that learned his lesson, maybe even a privacy advocate, then start a private investigation company or something. That doesn't seem to be his angle.
Give it a moment. The narcissist is probably fully aware that the lady is a much more interesting target for the media. First, being an attractive women. Second, being involved as a HR exec is far far more interesting than as a CEO. So stay quiet, let her be the focus, make your moves when the media has moved on to the next inebriating story. Having an affair with an employee is largely a non-issue among tech-bros, regardless of what they may be saying for the camera right now. He just needs to lay low for
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Like it's OK when you fly off to Pedo island with your best friend. But not so good when other people do it.
I don't think Bill Clinton has made any accusations about anyone else. I think he just plays dumb about it all.
Re: Its more a narcissist thing .... (Score:1)
I have read 3 of your comments in thei thread and deflecting attention for a pedo is not only tiring, accusing "tech bros" of deflecting from and normalizing infedility in the same breadth is pretty telling.
Are you sure you are not jealous that you couldn't cheat your wife with an underage?
Ashley Madison part 2.0 (Score:4, Informative)
Do like all smart affair-havers do, don't got to a public venue with lots of people and cameras.
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I used to ride my motorcycle through the Santa Monica mountains all the time. There was a spot off Mullholland where lots of apparent cheaters would meet, park one car and leave in another, all the time. Rich housewife pickup spot.
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What you said is indeed better.
But humans are involved so bad things will happen.
Now, back to my coffee.
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Do like all smart affair-havers do, don't got to a public venue with lots of people and cameras.
Ironically a concert is one of the better places to go. They are dimly lit and aside from this one example for the most people no one recognises (or even pays attention to) anyone at such events. In fact the only reason anyone paid attention to these guys is because the person whom they were paying attention to, specifically called them out.
Re:Prurient Interests (Score:5, Interesting)
Do the Coldplay Kiss cam people have a 170+ page House Congressional Investigation report on them?
FINAL REPORT OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS [house.gov]
"We" as in the public at large do know more about Crooks. Most people don't want to be assed to find out that. Don't act like it doesn't exist or nobody did the work.
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As the meme says, "we knew more about the Coldplay Kisscam couple after one day than we know about Matthew Crooks after one year."
Be careful about what people find interesting but be even more careful about what people find anti-interesting.
Especially the "free press".
If I were going to assassinate a president you can be darn sure a) I wouldn't tell anyone about it, b) wouldn't leave any notes lying around, c) would destroy my hard drive well prior to the day, and d) would make sure I can hit my target at 400 feet.
Re:Prurient Interests (Score:5, Insightful)
Because Matthew Crooks was a registered republican. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/t... [cbsnews.com]
That's why the administration has been silent. Had this guy been a democrat they'd still be talking about the "radical left".
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Save a screenshot, this is going away next week.
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Anyone can register for whichever party they like. There isn't a litmus test. Crooks had a lot more in his background than just being a registered Republican, and a good bit of it wasn't consistent with Republican party platforms or Trumpism in general.
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You say that as if people routinely register for the party they oppose. They don't.
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Who the hell is Matthew Crooks?
No, wait, Nevermind. I have a feeling it doesn't matter.
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He shot Donald Trump in the ear.
Re: Prurient Interests (Score:2)
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I knew it didn't matter.
But good on you for keep track of the names of all the nobodies in the world.
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As the meme says, "we knew more about the Coldplay Kisscam couple after one day than we know about Matthew Crooks after one year."
There's a lot of info about him [wikipedia.org].
Would be more accurate to say, "We know why the Coldplay couple did what they did, we have no clue why Matthew did what he did."
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It's somebody who gets paid to make your life miserable.
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My wife is a "people officer"?
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It means head of HR department. Some people who want "C ... O" as a vanity template for their job title.
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People kept pointing out that "human resources" is pretty dehumanizing so they came up with friendlier sounding names.
why she "resigned" (Score:5, Insightful)
She didn't really resign, it was almost certainly more of a "you resign or we fire you, which do you want on your job history?"
Companies need their employees to have some level of trust in their HR people. A smart employee will know "HR is NOT your friend". They're not employed to be your friend, their main job is to protect the company from its employees. Like discouraging them from filing lawsuits the company will lose, and to stop their manager (and other employees in general) from doing illegal things to other employees that will trigger such a lawsuit. They try to spin "this will be bad for the company" into "this will be bad for you", to change your mind or change your behavior. You can be much more influential if people feel they can trust you.
And "I cheated on my spouse" is not a trustworthy look. That, along with the sprinkling of bad press the company got, is why she "resigned".
The problem is you got caught & were expendabl (Score:5, Interesting)
Look, cheating is shitty, but I've learned to accept that people do shitty things and I have to just tolerate things...people, almost always with children, have affairs...others get high or abuse themselves...others just act recklessly and stupidly and I have to just accept it since they're harming their families and not mine. I know that if every cheater was scooped off the face of the planet, I'd lose most of my bosses and a lot of my friends...probably a bunch of family members I didn't know about either....so I try not to judge.
What infuriates me is how stupid they were. You're fucking your own HR lady? You need to fuck another woman?...you can't get on tinder and find anyone else?...you got a thing for HR ladies?...can't you fuck another company's HR lady? You're a fucking CEO that travels often...you can find a mistress. You fucked up life for your employees who depend on you to be smarter....but really, I will wager you're only marginally more talented than any janitor or car mechanic and easily replaceable with someone that can do a far better job, especially among the executives in your company. Hopefully they'll show more discretion.
At least twice in my life, I've worked with my boss's mistress. It's very stressful and scary. One was a massive unprofessional bitch, but I couldn't complain because my boss was also a prick. Everyone knew what they were doing...so everyone was walking on eggshells for his bipolar mistress. She didn't do her job and pushed her tasks on others and I have no clue why she was hired at all (she wasn't even hot...just a skinny, psycho, barely-MILF). I suppose I should thank them because it motivated me to finally look for a better job and I got a much better one. The second time, I didn't know until I pissed off the mistress for pointing out how one of her mistakes was the cause of a customer outage (I was asked by my boss what happened) and the boss started penalizing me afterwards(a coworker who was much more of a gossip informed me afterward). He was fired 6 months later, for something HR related, the rumor being sexually harassing an intern.
Folks, if you're going to be shitty, don't shit where you eat. You're harming yourself, your family, your affair-partner's family, and everyone who depends on you at work. In this case, he either harmed his company...or perhaps benefitted them?...because now I know the company's name...they seem like a shitty low-end cloud provider and now they're national news.
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What infuriates me is how stupid they were. You're fucking your own HR lady? You need to fuck another woman?...you can't get on tinder and find anyone else?...you got a thing for HR ladies?...can't you fuck another company's HR lady? You're a fucking CEO that travels often...you can find a mistress.
I doubt either party was actively looking to cheat on their existing partner. I think he and the lady in HR became attracted to each other. Psychologists say the top three factors for attraction are proximity, similarity, and familiarity. The attraction developed while they were working together and, quite foolishly, they acted upon it.
Another fun one from psychology is that men go through a midlife crisis, which tends to involve a lot of mate seeking behavior, when their wife enters menopause. Not hard
The Video (Score:4, Insightful)
The video is amusing. Astronomer is handling turning an embarrassment into an opportunity. Good on them.
Continuity of cringe (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: "This Smells Like My Vagina" scented candles (Score:3)
Totally bogus, don't buy them!
I bought those candles and they smelled like old fish.
Astronomy (Score:2)
Why are they called Astronomer if they don't look at the stars? Too bad really, because if they were actually doing astronomy at scale, there wouldn't have been an available telescoping lens to zoom into their CEO.
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I want to be a People Officer (Score:2)
Re:I want to be a People Officer (Score:4, Funny)
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Don't women know we can put something hard there for free?
Gwyneth Paltrow? (Score:2)
I want one of her pussy-scented candles. It;s the closest I'll get.
Really accidental? (Score:1)
Re: Really accidental? (Score:2)
I thought that hiring GP was Astronomer's weird attempt at some sort of flex on Crooks. "Hire Paltrow, i bet she's got dirt on him!"
Black Mirror (Score:3)
Is Astronomer supposed to be a tech company? (Score:3)
This, folks, is why China is winning.
Meh (Score:2)
Clearly the company wanted to be clever, ironic, or get free publicity by hiring Chris Martinâ(TM)s ex wife. Regardless, I donâ(TM)t even understand the point. There is no connection between a cheating CEO and a happily divorced woman. They must have thrown a large amount of money at Gwyneth for her to do this ad, but it fails to be clever in any humorous way. The media sure likes it, though. Why? Probably because they were paid to.