Startup Reputation Breaks in Public — Here’s Why Training Should Start in Private

This week, a Coldplay concert turned into a cautionary tale about startup culture.

Andy Byron, CEO of the tech company Astronomer, was caught on the stadium kiss cam embracing his Chief People Officer, Kristin Cabot. The video went viral. So did the silence from the company for a couple of hours.

I didn’t see Learning and Development (L&D) leader when I searched for their leadership or anything that resembled training. This may indicate that there was no public-facing evidence that someone had built systems for a company to hold under pressure (investors, legal scrutiny, optics, etc). What I did see were millions of people watching a live demo of what happens when power dynamics, company culture, and personal choices collide in public.

This led me to think Astronomer may be:
A startup whose leadership misstep instantly became its brand.

Yikes.

Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on Unsplash.

In Early-Stage Startups, People Move Faster Than Principles

I’ve worked in learning and development long enough to know that culture isn’t built in a slide deck. It’s not a one-pager of values and it’s not hiring a CPO and assuming that solves ethics or power dynamics.

Culture is what shows up when no one’s watching.
Training is what prepares people for when everyone is.

At Astronomer, most of the team had more or less two years’ tenure. That means there were likely no norms. No shared stories about how leadership behaves. No onboarding sessions that say, “Here’s how we deal with messy human stuff, even (especially) when it’s hard.”

And yet that’s exactly what startups need:

• Training on interpersonal boundaries

• Micro-scenarios around influence, optics, and power

• A shared language for addressing ethical ambiguity

• Clear structures for what happens before a moment goes viral

Training Doesn’t Guarantee Good Behavior—But It Does Buy You Time, Trust, and Leverage

Two people can behave poorly in spite of all the training you provide. That’s not the point.
The point is: when things go public, can your company show it took culture seriously before the crisis?

If the answer is yes, you’ve got:

• Documentation

• Policies in writing

• Completed trainings and signed acknowledgments

• A trail of good-faith effort

That becomes your insulation. It gives you a clean path to act, whether that’s removing executives, reaffirming values, or stabilizing investor relationships.

When startups skip training, they also lose the ability to say, “We did everything we could.” But when training is in place? You can show you had a code of conduct, clear messaging, leadership expectations, and learning moments in writing. That documentation becomes part of how you respond, not just to your team, but to investors, media, and future hires.

Don’t Wait Until the Kiss Cam Moment

Startups spend thousands perfecting product onboarding. But internal onboarding? Often an afterthought, until it’s too late.

Training doesn’t make people perfect.
But it gives you a path back to clarity when imperfection goes public.

If you don’t build the culture infrastructure now, you won’t just face the fallout.
You’ll be blamed for never seeing it coming.
And even worse, for never preparing anyone else either.

Before You Go

If you’re building a startup or early-stage team and haven’t yet laid the foundation for repeatable onboarding and learning, I’ve been thinking a lot about that challenge; and building tools to help. Whether it’s an onboarding hub, a training audit framework, or a few clear SOP templates, I focus on helping fast-moving teams protect both their talent and their momentum.

You can explore my Notion onboarding kit (below) or check out the tools I’ve been designing for teams who need structure before they scale.

Note: Everything I publish reflects my own perspective—rooted in past experience and personal research. Nothing here represents any employer or client.