Zoom CEO Eric Yuan accidentally left his mic on mute while talking to investors over Zoom

(Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Dropbox)

• Zoom CEO Eric Yuan forgot to unmute his mic during a call with investors Tuesday.
• After several seconds, a coworker spoke up to let Yuan know no one could hear him.
• As video calls have become the norm during the pandemic, so too have new ways of miscommunicating.
• For more stories go to www.BusinessInsider.co.za.

We've all been there: it's your turn to chime in on the video call, and right when your train of thought gets rolling, a chorus of frantic coworkers chime in to say no one can hear you - you've left yourself on mute.

As it turns out, even the creator of Zoom himself can fall victim to one of the most common, if harmless, missteps that comes with using video conferencing tools.

CEO Eric Yuan left his mic on mute for several seconds while kicking off an earnings call with investors on Tuesday, before someone from the company's investor relations team spoke up to tell Yuan his audio wasn't coming through.

CNBC reporter Jordan Novet tweeted a screenshot of the incident.

With coronavirus stay-at-home orders forcing millions of workers to turn to video conferencing tools like Zoom for nearly all their meetings, slip-ups like Yuan's have become increasingly common as people try to adjust to the sometimes unfamiliar form of communication.

While the tools have become more sophisticated than ever, they've also revealed the many ways they fall short of replicating good, old-fashioned in-person conversations, from lagging video and audio to triggering fight-or-flight responses to allowing uninvited trolls to crash calls.

Still, video tools - Zoom in particular - are seeing an unprecedented surge in users. Yuan said in April that Zoom logged more than 300 million meeting participants on a single day.

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