"Often I’ll do a meeting where I have lots of people in case we need to get their input. But for most of the meeting I don’t need all of them to be paying attention (and I’m happy if they’re getting other work done)."

So they're not paying attention because he enjoys having excess people on calls and wasting their time.

Sounds like torture. The CEO wants you on the call, probably won't need you, and you're supposed to feel comfortable disengaging when he's berating coworkers about a missing third argument in a function's documentation.

The people on that particular call didn't even seem to know what they were talking about half the time though. It's entirely possible that they're both asked to passively participate in oversubscribed meetings and neglecting to do their jobs creating further frustration.

It seriously doesn't sound like he's happy when he snaps at them to unmute and start responding!