🏳️‍🌈 Pride Month: Silicon Valley Squares

Hello, hello! Welcome everyone to yet another episode of Silicon Valley Squares. If you've never caught the show, thank you for joining.

Whether you're catching the live stream or one of the recordings, today is a special day here on the squares.

We are having a Prideflare celebration, a Proudflare celebration, where we are celebrating Pride Month and everything that entails.

As you know, nothing celebrates the diversity of the human experience so much as putting a whole bunch of people in Zoom boxes.

With that, we're going to share some trivia with all of our friends.

If you've never caught the show or are unfamiliar with the format, we're playing tic-tac-toe.

I have two contestants here, Andrew and Rihanna. Each of them will be selecting one of our Cloudflare employees.

I'll be asking them a Pride Month-themed trivia question.

We'll try to get three across, three down, or three diagonally.

With that, I'll start with introductions. I'm your host, Dan Hollinger from the West Coast.

We'll ask Rihanna. Rihanna, thank you for jumping on the show.

Can you give a quick introduction? I'm so excited to be here. I'm using my drag name today, Rihanna Wintour, pronouns she and her.

It's been so long since I've done drag, and excited to be here.

Awesome. Well, we're glad to have you.

And you're going up against a Cloudflare veteran here, or Silicon Valley Squares veteran, Andrew Fitch.

Would you mind giving a quick introduction? Hey, everybody.

Yep, I'm Andrew Fitch. I'm based out of San Francisco, but I'm in Massachusetts, and so psyched to be here to help celebrate Proudflare and Pride Month.

Awesome. All right, with that, I'll bring up the board. Rihanna, you get first choice.

Where would you like to play first? I'll place Chase Robinson. All right, Chase, center square.

Welcome to Silicon Valley Squares. Thanks. Would you mind giving a quick introduction of yourself?

Absolutely. I'm Chase, pronouns are he, him, and I'm the global lead for Proudflare here at Cloudflare.

Awesome. So your question is, to kick off game one, what event is commonly seen as the beginning of the modern gay rights movement?

Ooh, that's a good one. Good guess, because I actually do know the answer to this.

I did a lot of research practicing for this, and it is going to have to be the birth of Leslie Jordan.

The birth of Leslie Jordan.

All right. Rihanna, do you agree or disagree? I'm going to have to disagree with that.

All right, that is a good call. It is the Stonewall Riots.

Right, of course. All right, I might need to let in on who that person is.

I didn't get to the joke, but here's the state of the board.

Andrew, where would you like to play next? Jacob Zollinger for $500.

All right, Jacob Zollinger. I don't really think he's worth $500.

He's probably worth more than that. Jacob, welcome to the Squares. Hello, thank you, everyone.

Happy to be here. Would you mind giving a quick introduction?

Yeah, I'm Jacob, based out of San Francisco and a big part of Cloudflare.

Really happy to help celebrate Pride here. Awesome. Your question, Jacob. What color was the sweater that Anne Hathaway wore in the 2006 Oscar-nominated film, The Devil Wears Prada?

Well, this is a hard question, obviously, because there are so many sweaters, but I know that it's referring to a specific sweater, and I'm going to have to say cerulean.

Cerulean.

All right, Andrew, do you agree or disagree? Yeah, that was definitely cerulean.

It was something just like this, actually. So it's cerulean. True. All right, so cerulean is correct.

All right. So, Andrew, Andrew gets the square. Watch out, Rihanna.

Oh, I'm watching. All right, so we've got a competitive— Andrew, little did you know, Andrew, that the scarf that you are wearing today is not just cerulean.

It was chosen by the people in this room for you to wear. All right, Rihanna, we've got a competitive game.

Where would you like to play next? This game is certainly heating up.

I'm going to play at Zidoon. All right, Zidoon, welcome back to the squares.

Good choice, Rihanna. My name is Zidoon. I'm a systems engineer at Cloudflare, based on the San Francisco office, but currently in Seattle.

And Zidoon is essentially our Bruce Valanche of Silicon Valley Square so far.

He's having a good time.

We always enjoy having him on the show. So, Zidoon, your question.

The original Pride flag, designed in 1978, contained three colors that don't show on the version of the flag today.

These colors were turquoise, indigo, and this color.

No. Well, you know, since things are getting heated here, I definitely am going to go with very hot pink.

And I know this for a fact. All right, hot pink.

Rihanna, do you agree or disagree with hot pink? Like, conceptually.

The Zotacat album, I am going to have to agree with that. Good choice.

All right, it was hot pink. So those were the original three colors of the original Pride flag.

I'll bring up the state of the board. And with that, it's Andrew's turn.

Where would you like to play next? Well, I have to go with Mike Miller, or I might lose.

And that is unacceptable. Mike, let's do this. Good choice.

All right, Mike, welcome back to the squares. Would you mind giving a quick introduction?

Yeah, Mike Miller, he, him. Fun fact, this is the first company I've worked at where there is not someone also named Mike Miller.

But yeah, I'm out of the Austin office, live here.

It's wonderful. It's hot. Awesome.

Yeah, I mean, you're midsummer in Austin. I'm sure everyone's trying to stay inside.

Oh, it's terrible. All right, Mike, your question for game one. What documentary chronicles the 1980s New York City ball scene?

Oh, my gosh. I'm like 90% sure on this.

It's been a long time since I've seen this movie. And I know it's not Mean Girls.

It's the, I believe it's Paris is Burning. All right, Paris is Burning. Do you agree or disagree?

I completely agree. Saw it, loved it. Yes, thank you, Mike.

It's been a couple years. All right, Paris is Burning is correct. All right, so you've got the block from Mike.

Okay, I thought the answer was Pose, so. All right, well, Rihanna, it's your board.

Where would you like to play next? Let's go to Eric.

All right, Eric for the block. Eric, welcome to the squares. Hi, good to be here.

My name is Eric Canigas. I go by he, they pronouns. And I'm a security engineering intern here at Cloudflare.

Awesome, glad to have you as an intern. So we were paying you, right?

Yeah, I'm getting paid, yeah. Okay, I'm just checking.

So glad to have you. And your question for game one. What prompted Harvey Milk and other gay rights activists in the Bay Area to start encouraging gay men and women to start to come out?

As a very studious historian of these initiatives, I think I would have to say it's the Briggs Initiative.

The Briggs Initiative.

All right. Rihanna, do you agree or disagree? It's been a long time since I've seen the movie Milk, so I'm just going to have to trust them.

Eric, I agree.

Does Eric look trustworthy? Very.

Okay. All right, well, that is correct. It was the Briggs Initiative. So for those out of the loop, the Briggs Initiative or California Proposition 6 would have banned gays and lesbians from working in California's public schools.

The hope was to show voters that there are already plenty of people that everyone loved and cared about that happened to be gay and that the proposition was a bad idea.

So with that, I'll bring the board back up. See, we get to learn stuff on the squares.

That's the fun bit. And Andrew, the state of the board is yours. Where would you like to play next?

Mariana. All right. Mariana, welcome back to the squares.

Would you give a quick intro for all of your fans? Absolutely. My name is Mariana.

I am based out of San Francisco. I'm on the Places team. Andrew, thanks for picking me.

He's my can't live without you work partner at Cloudflare, even though we're on different teams.

I got you. I got you. I don't know. It does look like you took a while, though.

Yeah, well, we'll talk about that later. All right. Mariana, be careful.

Mariana and Andrew are in this together. I've seen Mariana on Cloudflare TV before.

I'm always on SBS. It's just an easy way to participate and fun for anyone watching.

Yeah, we just throw away the participation points. We just like hand them out to anyone.

All right. So, Mariana, your question, which Hogwarts headmaster was confirmed to be LGBTQIA plus in the series Harry Potter?

Of course, out of all the questions, I get the Potterhead one.

I'm a huge Potterhead. One would think that at a glance, the first LGBTQIA character might be Gilderoy Lockhart, because in the second year he gave the students a quiz asking what his favorite color is.

And the favorite color is lilac. But he was not a headmaster and that was never confirmed.

So the Hogwarts headmaster, which was confirmed after the first seven books was written to be LGBTQIA, according to the author, it was a cop out that she didn't write it into the plotline, whatever, was Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, in case you needed his full name.

All right. I'm convinced that I didn't read any of the books, but what do you think?

This is highly suspect and very detailed.

I read the first book, ages ago, and I haven't read a single book or seen any of the films or anything since.

I'm not ready for this so I'm just going to have to rely on Mariana's answer and hope that she's not lying to me.

You thought that was convincing? Yes. All right, well, that is correct.

It was Albus Dumbledore. All right, thank you, Mariana. And with that, I'll bring up the state of the board.

Mariana, where would you like to play next?

Let's go for Amada. Hello. I'm Amada, she, her. I work at Cloudflare and happy to be here.

All right, Amada, glad to have you. What kind of work are you doing at Cloudflare?

I'm on the field marketing and events team, so doing lots of virtual events.

Nice. All right, your question. How many countries so far have legalized same-sex marriage?

I'm not sure, but I believe the correct number is not enough.

Sounds correct.

But you want to go in on a firm number? I would guess about 30. All right, about 30.

Agree or disagree with about 30? I agree with the first answer.

Not enough. I'm not that good at counting things. I work in advertising, so I'm going to have to disagree.

Not that I have a better answer.

All right, I'll give you a disagree. I was looking for 33.

33 countries have legalized same-sex marriage, the first of which was the Netherlands in 2001.

All right, so next square. Andrew, where would you like to play?

Well, doesn't look like much is happening here.

I'll go with Rory. Rory, I haven't seen you in ages.

Good to see you on here. All right. Rory, welcome back to the squares.

Hey, Andrew. Hey, everyone. Yeah, I'm Rory. I'm based out of the London office, and I'm in the security team.

I work on privacy. Awesome.

Glad to have you. First, I think only one dialing out of London today. Your.

Should we make a question now?

Someone asked me a question. Oh, we got that. I'm back.

What did the color blue represent in the very first rainbow flag? What does the color blue represent in the very first rainbow flag?

I don't know this. I want to say it might be Madonna's first album.

Oh, this is hard. This is hard. You guys can unmute yourself so we can hear your laughter.

That's part of the part of the. It's going to be either love or peace or maybe love and peace.

OK, I'm going to go with love, love, peace, peace.

All right. Love squared plus P squared. Do you agree or disagree?

It sounds like a made up answer. I'm not sure, but it sounds like a made up answer to disagree.

I mean, all the answers are made up. Like if you want to go that route.

All right. Disagree is correct. The blue stood for harmony. Hmm. That's lovely.

All right. Well, peace. I should have said peace. And with that, we'll wrap up.

We'll actually completely fill the board for game one because we're trying to be inclusive here.

So, Brianna, where would you like to play last? Let's play.

OK, last but not least. HRH, Eric, Royal Highness. All right, Eric, welcome back to the squares.

I'm glad to be back. I'm Eric. I'm in the Austin office on the revenue team and a proud member of Proud Flare.

Awesome. Glad to have you and the only other guest host of Silicon Valley Square so far.

All right. Sometimes it's a little bit, just a little south side.

All right. Your question to wrap up game one. This San Francisco location was one of the few places in San Francisco where transgender women could openly congregate in 1966.

Name that place. If the Cloudflare office was open, then we would have been the first place.

OK, that would have been iconic.

But no, actually, I'm not from SF, but I've definitely heard.

I think it's called this one place called the Presidio. I think, yeah, that's that's where I'm going to go with.

I mean, I could see a bar named the Presidio like and you literally spelled it out like.

Presidio.

I think that's what he's aiming for. All right. Do you agree or disagree or do you want to change your answer?

What do you mean? I don't get to change the answer.

Do I know? She's sticking with the Eric Serkin with the answer.

Do you agree or disagree with the Presidio?

So the Presidio to me is all golfing. I don't know. Like a lot of trans people were golfing back in the day.

I have to disagree because I also think I know the answer.

So I'm disagreeing. All right. Would you happen to share with the audience?

What do you think the answer is? I think it's the Compton Cafeteria in the Tenderloin.

Oh, all right. That is correct. It is the Compton Cafeteria. So with that, the end of game one, Rihanna takes game one with three down the middle.

And game one was brought to us by Cloudflare Spectrum.

Cloudflare Spectrum is a product to protect and accelerate your entire network.

You can protect TCP and UDP applications.

And I chose it because it's Pride Month and the name was cool.

So with that, we'll move on to game two. Should go a little bit quicker. Andrew, you get to start us off.

Where would you like to play on the board? Sure. I'll go with the middle square.

Chase Robinson. All right. Chase, your question for game two.

What city in the United States held the first gay pride parade? This one I actually do know for realsies this time.

One would think that it would be New York or San Francisco, but I do believe it is actually Chicago.

Chicago.

Andrew, do you agree or disagree with that? A deep dish pride parade? Disagree.

I think it was New York. All right. Well, actually, it was Chicago. It was one day before New York's parade.

I thought we had something special. I mean, he told you he was crazy.

You see, he sounded confident to me. He knew it. All right.

So with that, with that miss, that means Rihanna gets center square and it's Rihanna's turn.

Where would you like to play next? I would like to play Mike Miller.

All right, Mike. Good choice. Your question for kickoff game two. Got to go find it.

There it is. Who has the LGBTQIA plus community elected to replace Ellen DeGeneres?

You guys hold elections. Oh, man. There's a conference. Is this a spiritual election?

I can tell you it is not Colton Underwood. So let's just clear that up.

Is that Caitlyn Jenner? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Where is it?

I'm you know what? I might get some flack for this, but. I think I got to go with Laverne Cox.

All right, Laverne Cox. Do you agree or disagree? So I wasn't invited to this conference.

I didn't vote in this election. So it's really hard for me to say.

I'm going to have to. But Laverne Cox is a great answer.

I'm going to agree. All right. Well, according to my producers, that is incorrect.

It is Jojo Siwa. And I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

Oh, yeah. She's great. But, you know, who are your producers? That's what I'll say.

I think that was one of the questions gifted to me by Chase. So I will refer to Chase in terms of the tallying that up.

But with that miss, Andrew gets the square and we're back to Andrew's turn.

OK, I am going to go with. Wait a second.

I'm the X, right? You are the O's. I'm the O, excuse me. We're very binary here on Silicon Valley Squares.

Yeah. Yet, yeah. We're not binary. It should be known.

Let's go with. Oh, gosh. I can hardly see it. Amata. Here, let me bring it back up.

All right. Amata, let's see your question for.

Game two is in nineteen fifty nine, a group of individuals revolted at Cooper Donuts or Donuts after mistreatment by the police in this California city.

Hmm.

I have read about this and.

It is Sacramento, and it just I just stuck in my mind because it was about three weeks ago I was reading about it.

All right. Sacramento, agree or disagree?

Not to Sacramento bash, but I don't think it's Sacramento.

I don't think it would have been. Sorry. Disagree. All right. Disagree is correct.

It was actually in L.A. Sweet. It was one of the first recorded LGBTQ riots.

Or uprisings.

So with that, Andrew gets the square and I'll bring up the board for Rihanna to make her choice.

Rihanna, where would you like to play next?

Let's try Rory in London. All right. Rory for the block.

This is this is crucial. It's ready.

All right. Rory, your question. What colors make up the trans flag?

Ooh. Ooh. And shout out to all our trans friends, colleagues and everyone during this pride month.

You are included, of course. Colors. OK, I think this is really straightforward.

I think it is baby blue. I think it is bright pink. And I think it's got a white stripe down the middle to represent those people that are transitioning between the two.

Sounds very metaphorical.

All right. Do you agree with baby blue, hot pink and white?

I didn't know that each of the colors had meaning, but now that you share it, I'm like thoroughly convinced between.

Yes, I agree. All right. That is correct. And the white does represent everyone in between, including intersex and transitioning individuals.

All right.

So X gets the square. I'll bring the board back up. And Andrew, you can you can choose next.

OK, I'm going to go with Eric, please.

All right, Eric Pierre. Oh, I guess. All right, Eric.

Just just double checking. All right, Eric, your question for game two on the Kinsey scale.

What number represents someone only attracted to the same sex?

You know, I feel very lucky that you're asking me that. And so because of how lucky I'm feeling, I have to go with lucky number seven.

All right, lucky number seven.

Do you agree or disagree with lucky number seven? I think I'm going to have to disagree because I don't remember which side of the scale it was, but it was only through one to one to six.

So wrong. Wrong. Nice try. Damn, Andrew got you.

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like we're getting we're getting trickier.

Like the squares are adding some sass here. So that is correct. Six represents only the same sex attraction to the same sex.

All right. So we're back to Rihanna.

Where would you like to play next? Let's play Jacob.

All right, Jacob, for the block. Hello. You're really taking your life into hands here.

I swear half these answers. I know half I don't know. I love to take risks.

All right, Jacob. In 2017, Philadelphia added these two colors to its pride flag.

What two colors? This is I actually do know this one. So thank God.

And if I don't. Yikes. But I'm going to say the colors black and brown, because black and brown folks have traditionally been major leaders of our movement since Stonewall, since Compton cafeteria rights.

They are important part of our community and should be highlighted.

All right. Black and brown. Do you agree or disagree? I agree.

All right. That is correct. I think. All right.

So with that, we actually have wrapped up game to Rihanna, you've swept both games.

I don't know if that was just the skill or if Andrew was playing nice this this these few games.

So with that, we're also nearing the end of time. So, again, thank you all for anyone catching the live stream or anyone catching a recording.

Thank you for joining Cloudflare here and helping us celebrate Pride Month with Proudflare.

Thank you and congrats team. We did it. Congrats Rihanna.

Congrats. Drop that new album, please. Yeah. All right. Normally this is we don't ask to spade or neuter pets, but if you do have any cats or dogs, you'd like to show up.

This is the show off. This is typically the time that it occurs. Other than that, thank you for all the squares for attending and answering some great trivia with us.

Oh, we got a cat. Yay. Cat tags. Awesome.

Well, thank you, everyone, and have a wonderful Pride Month. Thank you. Congrats Rihanna.

Congrats. Congrats.