Why did Astronomer’s CEO have to resign over his affair?

I need you to help me out with something. I’m a little confused about this Astronomer-married-CEO-caught-with-his-girlfriend thing.

Unless you’ve gone dark on all news and social media, you’ve seen that the CEO (Andy Byron) of an artificial intelligence company called Astronomer and his head of human resources (Kristin Cabot) were awkwardly nabbed on camera at a Coldplay concert in a way that showed they weren’t two platonic work colleagues out on the town. Now, after getting Board of Directors pressure, Byron has resigned over being caught with his girlfriend/mistress, which is really puzzling to me.

So, he was caught red-handed in an adulterous affair. So what?

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This is 2025, folks. Our culture is clear in its standard that what two consenting adults do outside of work is A-OK, and that no corporate lifestyle dictates or anything else should trump sexual self-expression. It’s who they are and who are we, or the Astronomer’s Board, to say that their relationship is wrong?

Don’t they remember the whole Bill Clinton Monica Lewinsky thing back in the mid-1990s? Even though a 1998 Gallup poll showed that over 70% of Americans disapproved of Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky, his job approval ratings stayed strong and even increased, beginning at around 60%, and rising to nearly 70% during the height of the scandal. When pushed as to why they still supported Clinton as president, Americans said they separated Clinton’s personal morality from his job performance — they believed he had done a good job with the economy and governance, and that his private life was not their concern.

The feedback on LinkedIn regarding the Astronomer episode is similar, with the common responses resembling this one: “I would keep the current dude, he sailed the ship well made $$$, people’s livelihoods at stake. Slipped up, who hasn’t? Presidents do it all the time, and they are the best we can offer, oops I did it again! Bill and Monica surely had more fun.”

So, why hasn’t Astronomer’s Board taken the same stance?

The company’s PR statement said “leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability,” which some have taken as saying that a romantic relationship between a CEO and the head of HR violated company standards or policies, especially given the power dynamic involved. The National Law Review said it’s common for policies to be particularly strict concerning romantic relationships between supervisors and subordinates due to the potential for conflicts of interest and complications in the workplace.

Maybe that’s it. But if so, just tell them to end the relationship and get back to work.

But more likely, if they weren’t married to other people, I bet it wouldn’t have ended this way — that there would have been a different set of company actions. I think it’s a justification being used to bounce Byron (and perhaps Cabot) for being caught in adultery.

And I get it.

Oddly enough, even in a culture that elevates sexual choice and expression to the highest level of “rights,” we still take a dim view of adultery. A Gallup survey done a few years back showed that 91% of Americans believe adultery is morally wrong (with 14% of liberals and 4% of conservatives saying it was OK, for an average of 9% disapproving). Another somewhat amusing study came out shortly afterwards, showing 70% of women condemning a married man who has an affair, but only 56% of them feeling the same about a married woman who cheats.   

If any of you ladies out there can explain that to me, I’m all ears.

Getting back to Byron resigning over his affair, I think his professional demise and others like it come down to a matter of adultery demonstrating a serious trust violation, what that means about the person’s character, and how it reflects on the way they will perform in the workplace and elsewhere. According to a Wall Street Journal article on the Astronomer situation: “Lack of trust in what business leaders say [or do] has risen 21% since 2021, according to annual surveys of more than 30,000 adults by global communications firm Edelman. That’s a slightly bigger jump than in distrust for government leaders or the media over the same period, according to the most recent survey published in January.”

Whether it’s Astronomer’s board or just us, we look at those committing adultery and think the same thing where trust is: if you can’t keep the most important promise you’ll ever make to the most important person you’ll ever meet, how can I trust you to keep any promises you make to me?

This is something instinctive to everyone; it’s one of those things that former atheist and now Christian philosopher J. Budziszewski says is something “we can’t not know.” And the reason we “can’t not know” it is because we’re created in the image of God and bear His moral mark on our persons.

This applies to everyone, even those who reject God, which is why Paul tells us that those “who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them” (Rom. 2:14–15).  

So while you have sites like Ashley Madison that caters to over 80 million subscribers seeking extra-marital affairs and surveys showing that more than one in ten married adults under 40 are still using dating apps, we can’t run from God’s moral law within us nor the consequences that occur from violating His law.

It’s akin to someone putting on a cape, going up on a roof, and throwing themselves off, saying they are going to find happiness in breaking the law of gravity. All that happens is you end up proving the law of gravity and breaking yourself in the process.

Just ask Andy Byron how broken he is right now. He’s experiencing what Proverbs 6:32-33 says: “The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense; he who would destroy himself does it. Wounds and disgrace he will find, and his reproach will not be blotted out.”

Let this be a lesson for all of us. It may not be a kiss-cam, jumbotron at a Coldplay concert, but when you play with such fire, “be sure your sin will find you out” (Num. 32:23).