A viral Kiss Cab moment at a Coldplay concert caught a tech CEO Andy Byron and his HR chief Kristen Kabat in an embrace before they panicked and ducked out of frame. Let's take a look at what happened as I provide my opinion as a tech executive and even a perspective you may not be expecting at the end. In a viral moment that will live in infamy, a kiss cam moment broadcast at a Coldplay concert exposed an apparent cheating tech tycoon and his head of HR mistress as the band's frontman Chris Martin immediately mused that they must be having an affair. Okay, so basically what's happened here is that somebody caught this tech executive at a Coldplay concert and the band lead actually called out just by their reaction that they must be having an affair. You can see it's pretty obvious from the way they reacted. It's obvious they were having an affair. The couple's reaction had guilt written all over it as they rushed to hide their faces and duck for cover during the concert at Gillette Stadium near Boston on Wednesday night. They were quickly identified by online sleuths as Andy Byron, the CEO of Astronomer, and Kristen Kitt who is the chief human resources officer at the company. Okay, so the people involved are Andy Byron, chief executive officer, and Kristen Kabat, chief people officer. So, these are the two of the top leaders at the company that they're supposed to be setting an example for the rest of the company. Let's keep watching. Astronomer is an AI and data company valued at about $1.2 billion. When Kat was hired in November last year, Byron gushed about her 20 years of HR experience and exceptional leadership skills, telling staff that she was a proven leader. Meanwhile, Kat wrote on LinkedIn that her conversations with Byron before her hiring had energized her about the opportunities at the company. She also boast uh before we get into what she says here, you know, uh it's not clear whether they had any kind of a relationship before the actually affair that was caught or the hug that was caught on camera. I'm not sure. I don't think so. My sense is that these kind of things may have happened while they started working together. But I think the bigger story is that for employees, you have to be very careful about how people present themselves. You almost never get the full picture. You just get a picture of what they want you to believe. She wins trust with employees of all levels, from CEOs to managers to assistants. Whoops. Well, she says she wins trust with people of all levels. This is not a good look, especially for someone from HR. Allegedly, Kat became more than just Byron's workwife. Something his actual wife, Megan Carrian Byron, is now having to watch play out for all the world to see. Now, uh you mentioned um now you see they mentioned this concept of a work wife or sometimes people talk about a work husband and this happens. You know the reality is that um in most companies the reality is that we spend a lot of our times at work and sometimes people joke about these uh relationships developing into work wives or work husbands where they they talk to others spend a lot of time with them develop a relationship that is kind of outside of work norms maybe telling them about their problems their situations and you know that's not necessarily wrong in a way but if you watch my other video Be very careful about extending relationships at work beyond just work because they can often come back to bite you. In fact, I made a video on why co-workers are not your friends. And if you haven't seen that one, you may want to check it out. This is a bit different because this is at a whole another level. After the kiss cam clip went viral and her Facebook page was bombarded with comments about the scandal, Megan quickly deleted her account. Page Six observed that her page, which contained family photos, was no longer accessible as of Thursday morning. Even more ominous, shortly before ticking it down, she deleted her last name from her profile. As for Kitt, she recently divorced from her husband, Kenneth Thornby. According to Massachusetts court records, the couple filed for divorce in 2018 and the split was finalized in 2022. Okay, so here you can see that Kristen Kitt was actually divorced. So she had a recent divorce. So emotionally and in from a relationship point of view, she may not have been in the best place. She may have um been looking for some kind of companionship given that she probably had been through some kind of turbulent relationship recently. And you know, things were ripe for something to happen from her perspective. Now, but the other side of this is that Andy Byron was married. He had kids. His wife was posting all these happy pictures on social media. The family going on hikes all smile. But again, this is very important. Remember, working at a company is almost like being in one big propaganda machine, okay? The company, the executives are always trying to sell you a vision. They're trying to sell you an image. They're trying to sell you about why you should work for them and why it's going to be so great. And you know, the reality is it may not be so bad in some sense, but if you buy into that, if you buy into that without questioning anything, you put yourself at a serious disadvantage. You need to do is try to understand your management chain. Try to see whether they are providing you accurate information, whether the image that they are presenting to you is correct. For example, if they're presenting to you that they're trustworthy, you can believe in them. And then you see evidence from either your peers, your co-workers, from their past history, that well, you know, they don't tell the truth all the time or they take credit when they really shouldn't be. And that's a signal. Okay? Everybody tells good stories. So, it's up to each and every one of us to really validate whether what these people, especially the people at the top, are saying is true. Two, it's unclear if she has since remarried. The former couple had at least one child for whom Thornby paid a lump sum child support payment to Kitt. So, what does this humiliating exposure mean for Byron and Cabbat's careers? Employment lawyer William Cafaro told the Post Thursday night, "It's horrible because she is the head of HR. She's involved in an extrammarital affair with the CEO. Basically, how much worse of an HR fauxpaw could you commit? Well, for the head of HR, uh, this this is going to be really bad. You know, HR is supposed to be the one instilling these company values in its employees. Uh, they're probably telling employees that they shouldn't get involved with people in the direct chain of command. And here we are, you know, they're doing exactly the opposite. If you watch one one of my other videos, I talked about company hierarchies and how basically the leaders at the top look out for each other. I'll post a link to that if you haven't seen it. But just keep in mind when people talk about the greater good, it just so happens that the people talk about the greater good are often the people at the top of the company, the greater good happens to align with what's in their best interest. While many were quick to point out that Kat needs a lesson from her own HR handbook, there doesn't seem to be too many employees publicly shedding tears for Byron. The incident sparked chatter among his former colleagues with many claiming that Byron got his rightful comeuppance according to a source who used to report directly to Byron. The source claimed that in text groups and chains, former employees are laughing their ass off and enjoying the hell out of what happened and him getting exposed, adding that Byron was allegedly a toxic boss. Okay. Well, so it seems like the CEO Andy Byron wasn't wasn't a fan favorite anyway. People at the company didn't really like him. I I haven't validated this. So, so I'm not sure, but I think it's quite probable that someone like Andy Byron, who um is basically just doing what he can to get what he wants, is going to have a trail of red flags behind him. And so again, as employees, as people close to situation, if you work for a company, if you work for a leader, I encourage everybody to keep your eyes and ears open to understand what really is the character of your manager, of the executive staff that you're reporting to. Now, I can tell you, having climbed the ranks to to an executive in the tech world, this kind of stuff definitely does happen. Most of the time, uh, people get away with it. I I wouldn't say it happens all the time. Uh but you almost never hear about this kind of thing because very often what happens is it's hushed up. People are paid sums of money to keep quiet because they don't want to damage the reputation of the company or they don't want to damage the reputation of the executives. Sometimes in certain situations CEOs are pushed out or uh executives are pushed out uh and the violations they committed are known but they're kept quiet. This happens repeatedly. Now, it kind of irks me a little bit because I've always been one of those people who hated those HR sessions, those HR trainings where we're forced to sit and learn time after time, quarter after quarter, year after year about things like harassment, about things like conflicts of interest, improper improper relationships. And I keep asking myself, who are the people that are doing these kind of things? Unfortunately, a lot of the time it's not the people. Yes, it can be the people, your peers or subordinates, but a lot of time it's it's even the people higher up in the chain. It's just that you never hear about it because they're higher up. And most likely, if it's at a high level, it's going to be hushed out if at all possible. The only reason this is public is because somebody caught them redhanded in public. So, you know, you can do the math and figure out like how many things happen in private or or with people who are much more careful. So, relationships at work are a thing. They do happen and and they can be okay as long as you know certain guidelines are followed. Typically people talk about being in different departments to avoid any potential you know management employee uh conflicts of interest and in fact even for me my wife and I met at a company. We eventually got married but we didn't really date while we were both working at the company. I actually got laid off and then the dating happened after that. So, you could say in a way that layoff was a great thing that happened to me. A resurfaced report from the information, a tech and business outlet, claims that people at Byron's previous company even quit because of how poorly he treated them. Multiple former employees said Mr. Byron would lash out against employees who disagreed with him, including threatening to fire them, reads the expose in which a former employee claimed you couldn't challenge him. Now, sure, there's some commentary about um the CEO threatening to fire people if they disagreed. It's hard to know what these these arguments are really about. If if somebody is disagreeing with the CEO repeatedly after the CEO has made that decision clear that there's certain direction they want to go, frankly, you know, I think the CEO might just have to fire that person. It's one thing to be open and to hear all perspectives. I think that's a good thing. But if the person is basically saying, "Hey, you know, I provided my perspective and the CEO didn't listen and I and then the person keeps bringing it up." You know, companies like Amazon, for example, have this concept of disagree but commit. So you have the discussion, you have the debate, but then you commit. So it's unclear to me if this is really a negative point for the CEO. It may actually be a positive one. With Byron heading the company, any action against him, including possible removal if he violated company policies in his supposed relationship with Kabitt, would be left up to the five other members on the board of directors. Kitt's fate, though, may already be sealed. I would say she's just about certain to be removed from her position. Yeah. So, I agree with this. I think the for the H head of HR, she's going to be removed from her position. I think probably the CEO will as well. I do unfortunately think that it's going to be worse for uh this HR chief Kristen Kitt even though you could argue in some ways maybe she um was in a in a in a better moral position but it certainly is a company violation. I think it's going to be bad for the HR chief Kristen Kitt. She's going to lose her job and the CEO is most likely going to as well. Unfortunately, I think in this case it's going to be worse for the HR chief Kristen Kitt because well, she's in HR and one of the things they're supposed to be doing is implementing policies and procedures and setting a good example for things like this. You know, we're not supposed to be having somebody having a relationship with someone in your direct reporting chain, for example, because it leads to all kinds of conflicts of issues and favoritism and so on. But also I think because uh Andy Byron um like it or not is probably going to be let off the hook due to some bias in the industry probably and how things are seen generally. But also um you know you can see this with existing examples like Mike Herd for example who uh was given other opportunities to be CEOs even after an improper relationship because how can you have someone in HR who is having an affair with the CEO imposing or making disciplinary decisions over any other employees. That's ludicrous Kafaro told the post. As for the Coldplay fan who accidentally exposed the alleged affair by filming and posting the viral clip, Grace Springer told The Sun her blunt response, "A part of me feels bad for turning these people's lives upside down, but play stupid games, win stupid prizes." Okay, so you know, while that's all true and I I do in some ways feel bad for both of them, their lives are going to be changed a lot uh in the future. So what are some takeaways from this? Like one is well, yes, uh you know, relationships at work are going to happen. and we all spend a lot of our time at work. Just make sure for those watching this that uh you take extra care of what happens in the workplace. You distance yourself as much as possible in terms of departments and things like that. You're definitely not supposed to be in a direct reporting line if you are going to start a relationship. I generally advise people to just keep work and life separate as I mentioned in my other videos. But the other thing you have to realize is that everybody's human. People are going to make mistakes. Even executives who present themselves as these larger than life figures are often just like the rest of us flawed and have limitations. I do want to play a little bit of a clip uh that I thought would be interesting and maybe a bit different than expected compared to what you were thinking. I had the American dream happen to me. I got the great job. I was good at it. I had a I bought a house. I the house had a pool, you know, I was had the American dream and I really really liked it. Loved it for about 6 months and then I walked in my house and went, "Oh man, this is not fixing this problem that I have. How is that possible?" Jim Carrey did a really good quote a couple years ago, a few few years ago, and he said, "I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame and so that they could see that it's not where you're going to find your sense of completion." You know, that message is very is very powerful because I I thought it would fix everything and you know, it didn't. Okay. The reason I played that clip is because I think it's relevant to the story here. Why did somebody or two people seemingly at the pinnacle of their success do something like this and potentially destroy value for the people in their company, destroy their careers, destroy their family relationships? Well, I think the answer is that as Matthew Perry says here, many people look outwards and think that the next corporate success, the house, the car, the IPO, whatever it might be, is finally going to satisfy them. But unfortunately, the culture that we live in makes you crave more. And if you've been following my channel, you've noticed I've taken a bit of of a break for a little while because I'm thinking about the direction I want to take the channel. And you know while I enjoy putting together uh content on on corporate life, I've also been thinking about you know what's beyond that. And the reason for that is because uh corporate success and um things like you know getting that next promotion while they can be great will never really fill the need will never really satisfy a person I think ultimately. So, um, whether it's create a new channel or talk more about those kind of things on this channel and how to just be more satisfied every day. If you want to see those kind of topics and more of an angle on those kind of things, um, just let me know in the comments below. I'm open to taking this channel or creating a new channel. Well, uh, that's all we have time for this week. And until next time, stay savvy, my