Laughing at themselves was the right move, because humor does four crucial things: 1) Connect with a new audience Even for people who don’t care about Apache Airflow®, being in on the joke together forms a connection with Astronomer 2) Defuse tension By joining the ridicule, they’re no longer its object 3) Get closure They said it out loud, the joke is tapped, everyone can now move on 4) Signal a fresh start The CEO and HR lady are gone, it’s a new management team, and making light of this shows they’ve “consciously uncoupled” from the past