“Look at the stars, look how they shine for you.”

When Coldplay’s lyrics drifted across Gillette Stadium, the Jumbotron settled on two tech executives who should have been invisible.

There was Astronomer CEO Andy Byron, arms wrapped around the company’s Chief People Officer, Kristin Cabot. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin made a joke about having an affair, the nine-second clip went viral on TikTok, and within 48 hours, Astronomer announced a formal investigation and Byron’s resignation.

Byron’s stumble isn’t just salacious gossip; it’s a case study in how power untethered from character corrodes everything it touches.

The whole scene was arrogance in high definition: supposed leaders ignoring their own company handbook, emboldened by titles like “Chief People Officer” — labels designed to reassure employees that someone is minding the culture. Instead, the culture was busy recording a souvenir for the internet.

The stakes here aren’t merely corporate. Byron has two sons at home who now know that a stadium of strangers saw Dad put his appetite ahead of his vows. Power, unmoored from character, doesn’t stay private for long.

Leadership used to begin with self-command. “Masculinity,” rightly understood, isn’t a bicep measurement or a LinkedIn title; it’s the willingness to subordinate appetite to covenant. That duty rises, not falls, with each extra zero on the paycheck. When a CEO’s marital infidelity is accidentally broadcast to seventy thousand strangers — and millions more online — he doesn’t merely embarrass himself; he teaches every junior employee that promises are props and power is its own permission.

Warren Buffett calls this the newspaper test: never do anything you wouldn’t want to see on the front page the next morning. Buffett formulated that rule in an era of ink and paper; Byron failed it in 4K on a Jumbotron. The lesson to the rest of corporate America is simple: smartphones have turned every employee into an investigative reporter. If your conscience won’t restrain you, the camera will.

There is another way to wield authority, and it usually starts at home. On my podcast, We The People, this week, NASCAR driver Corey LaJoie explained that he’s running only a partial Cup schedule in 2025 because, after years on the road, he could no longer justify the sacrifice it took away from his marriage and family.

Golf’s world-number-one Scottie Scheffler echoed that sentiment this week before winning the Scottish Open.

“If my golf ever started affecting the relationship I have with my wife or my son, that’ll be the last day I play for a living,” Scheffler said. “I’d much rather be a great father than a great golfer.”

These men understand that the first boardroom any leader faces is the kitchen table, and the most precious assets aren’t patents or property but the eyes of a spouse and the hearts of children. These men cultivated virtue before the spotlight found them.

We do have CEOs — men and women — who live that order of operations. Hobby Lobby founder David Green gave away ownership of his multibillion-dollar craft empire because, as he put it, “wealth without purpose feels like a curse” and he “chose God” over inheritance. Chick-fil-A’s late Truett Cathy and his son Dan have kept every restaurant dark on Sundays for six decades, leaving an estimated billion dollars in annual sales on the table so employees can worship and rest with their families.

Byron and Cabot, by contrast, appear to showcase the peculiar arrogance of today’s C-suite. Power once came with an instinctive fear of scandal; now it too often breeds a gambler’s confidence that any mess can be dry-cleaned by PR. 

Sure, Astronomer released a statement saying, “our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability.” But after the entire world had already watched the clip, this felt less like penitence than a hedge against litigation.

Meanwhile, two marriages absorb the fallout, two sets of children learn that Mom and Dad’s LinkedIn profile is no shield against public shame, and an HR department that talks relentlessly about “psychological safety” can’t summon the basic empathy to look away from a phone screen.

Yet the episode also reveals something about the rest of us. For two news cycles, a niche data-analytics firm crowded out wars, inflation, and Senate hearings because America’s fractured public square is glued together these days by viral humiliation. Outrage is our last shared liturgy; we refresh the feed to feel morally superior without doing the slower work of becoming moral ourselves. That reflex is understandable — schadenfreude is a cheap dopamine hit — but it leaves us culturally malnourished.

So, what now? First, remember Buffett’s rule and upgrade it for 2025: never do anything you wouldn’t want replayed on a 100-foot LED board. Second, reclaim the job title that matters most. Byron was paid to be Astronomer’s chief executive, but his first C-suite assignment was at home. When that office collapses, the one with glass walls usually follows. Third, honor the leaders who already model restraint: Green signing away his fortune, Cathy locking the doors on Sundays, LaJoie pruning his schedule, and Scheffler ready to shelve his clubs. They prove that influence and integrity are not mutually exclusive.

Coldplay closes its shows with “Fix You,” promising that the lights will guide you home. For Byron and Cabot, those lights guided them somewhere far more uncomfortable. For the rest of us, they illuminate a choice: follow the glow toward easy outrage or turn inward and become the kind of men and women whose families — and yes, whose companies — can trust us when the camera suddenly clicks on.