Silicon Valley Squares

Hello, hello everyone. Welcome to yet another episode of Silicon Valley Squares. If you've never joined us before, if you're catching the live stream or one of the recordings, welcome to Silicon Valley Squares.

This week, we're being taken over by the UK Black History Month, sponsored by Afroflare, an employee resource group here at Cloudflare.

And if you've never seen the show before, what we have is two contestants, Daniel and Nicholas, both trying to complete a tic-tac-toe across our board of Cloudflare celebrities.

They're trying to get either three across, three down, or three diagonally.

And with that, keep in mind questions and trivia are going to be related to the Black History Month takeover.

So I'm going to just initially apologize for any names and pronunciations I might butcher.

I am not a professional TV host despite my suit.

So we'll see how this goes. And with that, I want to introduce our contestants.

Daniel, would you mind giving yourself an intro? Absolutely.

Thank you very much, Dan. My name is Daniel Jones. I work with Cisco Meraki in the San Francisco headquarters.

I've been with them for about a year and a half now.

And I work as their front desk coordinator, also touching base with their facilities team and design team.

Awesome. Glad to have you on the squares. Hopefully we can give you a win.

But on the other side of the contestants table is Nick. Would you mind giving a quick intro?

How you doing? I'm Nick. I'm a non-destructive testing technician, travel doing QA, QC for aerospace, oil pipeline, and infrastructure.

Awesome. And I think this might be the first time we have two non -Cloudflare employees as contestants.

We've always had kind of maybe one every so often.

And now I want to like, hopefully, you know, if you guys win, I want to give you something.

You know, if it's Cloudflare swag or in the Meraki case, non-Cloudflare swag, we'll figure something out.

All right. And with that, Daniel, the board is yours.

Let me go ahead and bring that up. Where would you like to start?

Let's see. I think I'm going to go with, we'll start off with Chad.

All right, Chad, welcome to the squares. Would you mind giving a quick intro?

Hey everyone, I'm Chad. I look after the commercial side of Sub-Saharan Africa for Cloudflare as an account executive.

Awesome. Glad to have you. And hopefully this is, you know, our easy trivia questions, right?

Yeah, bring it on.

All right. So your question to kick off game one, Windrush Day, founded in remembrance of 500 migrants from the Caribbean arriving in Essex in 1948, takes place during what summer month?

Hmm, that's a good question.

So either summer in the northern hemisphere or the southern hemisphere.

Well, we're going to go with the northern hemisphere and I'm going to say it's summer.

All right, which summer month? June.

Gonna say June. All right, Daniel, do you agree or disagree? Oh man. Well, I do like the summer months, but this is very random and I'm going to, I'm going to disagree.

Disagree. It was actually June. So June 22nd is Windrush Day. The people who descended from the original Caribbeans were referred to as the Windrush generation.

We're going to learn a lot on this episode. Yeah, we are. All right. All right.

So Chad, question. All right, Chad. So that actually, that square goes to Nicholas for the miss and the board is yours, Nicholas.

Where would you like to play?

I'll go with Scott. All right, Scott, center square. Welcome. Would you mind giving a quick intro?

Sure. First of all, I'm wearing my shirt here representing the diaspora and I want to say big up to the Caribbean folks.

I want to say Akwaba, which means welcome to the folks from Ghanaian descent.

And I want to say maybe I can choose an Igbo word or Yoruba word for my Nigerian brothers who are also of UK descent.

So for starters, I'm the head of recruitment here at Cloudflare.

I've been here for three years. It's been a lot of fun just being here.

Super excited to be on this show and I don't know if I know any of these answers.

So good luck choosing me on this show. All right. Good. Way to set expectations.

You can tell you're in recruiting. You know, this is perfect. All right.

Your question. When was the first celebration of Black History Month in the UK?

Given that the first African person of African descent stepped foot in the UK, well, according to history books, I think they probably got there earlier.

That's just my judgment.

In 1600, 16th century, I think, or 15th century, 16th century. I think they started celebrating Black History Month right off the bat.

That's my answer and I'm sticking to it.

Be careful. Be careful. All right. Early 1600s. Nick, do you agree or disagree?

I disagree. All right. That's a good guess. It was actually in 1987.

So in 1987 is when we had that first celebration. So Nick gets center square.

And this might be a very quick game won. Let me get that production value over there as I move the O to center square.

And Daniel, the board is yours. Where would you like to play?

I'm going to go with, let's say, Warren.

All right. Are you sure? Nick has a win condition going on here. I mean, I don't know if you're playing like 4D chess, but this is just tic-tac-toe.

I think you want to go in the corner.

I think you want to go in the corner. I know what I want to do, but I'm afraid to do it.

I don't want to mess it up. I mean, you can still go Warren.

I'm just the host. This is the most helpful host of all time here.

All right, Warren. Welcome to the squares. Would you mind giving a quick intro?

Sure. So I'm Warren. Excuse me. I'm a customer success manager here in the San Francisco office at Cloudflare.

So what that means is I pretty much help manage a lot of our enterprise accounts here at Cloudflare.

So that's it. I'm happy to be here.

Awesome. Glad to have you on the squares. Your question. Who was appointed as Secretary General of the United Nations in 1996?

Okay.

So I'm going to guess it's someone from Africa. I'm going to guess maybe it's someone from West Africa and someone that died in Switzerland.

I'm not sure how that connection was made, but I think his name is Kofi Annan.

All right. Kofi Annan. Do you agree or disagree?

I'm going to agree. All right. It's Kofi Annan. That was a nice history.

I didn't know all that background. Kofi Annan died? He did in Switzerland.

Oh my goodness. In 2018, two years ago recently. All right. Okay. All right.

So X is on the board. So let's look at the state of the board. And Nick, the choice is yours.

Where do you like to play? I'll go for the win without. All right.

Going for the win. This is a loaded combination. No pressure. All right. Fallon, I know you're a squares veteran at this point, but would you mind introducing yourself for all those that don't know of your Cloudflare TV notoriety at this point?

Sure. And every time on the show, I like to remind folks that I'm the original champion.

I'm still waiting on my trophy. But yeah, so I'm Fallon Blossom.

I'm the content manager for Cloudflare TV and I work in the Austin office.

Nick is also my cousin, so I might get kicked out the family if I don't do this right.

Yeah. So there may be some conflicts of interests in this game one.

I mean, I don't know where we fall on nepotism, but we'll figure it out as we go along.

All right. Here's your question. And again, apologies for any butchered names.

In what year did Dr. Nneka Abulokwa, a tech and digital entrepreneur, receive the distinction of the Office of the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II?

Okay. So first of all, you said her name better than you said majesty, so snaps to you.

I live in a democracy. Majesty is a bad word.

Okay. So I'm going to guess that this happened recently because I'm like, she's tech, she's digital.

This has to be recent. So I'm going to go with 2019, last year. All right.

2019, Nick, do you agree or disagree for the win? I agree. All right. It was 2019.

All right. So Nick takes game one.

The system's rigged. This is so unfair. I think that's a fair assessment.

There's some conflict of interest here. Yep. All right. Well, is there anything checking game shows?

We'll get a letter from that organization that checks the validity of game shows.

And with that, game one is at its end. Game one was brought to you by the Cloudflare Partner Network.

Why? Because I'm on the partner team and I created this show.

So I put this slide together. And if you want to learn more about partnering with Cloudflare and learn more about our enablement and co-marketing materials and our channel account teams, check out portal.Cloudflarepartners.com.

All right. End of plug. We're back to game two. Fresh board.

Nick, the choice is yours. Where would you like to kick things off? I'll start with Devin.

All right. Devin, welcome. Would you mind giving a quick intro to all your fans on Cloudflare TV?

Uh, yep. Devin. Enjoy long walks on the beach.

I mean, IT security engineer here in Austin. There we go. We need video dating on Cloudflare TV.

That's the next step. We'll see. Are you lonely? It's quarantine, you know, really getting you down.

I can walk with you from a distance. Yeah.

Six feet apart. Walk on the beach. Six feet apart. All right, Devin, your question.

Who directed the 2013 film 12 Years a Slave, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, making him the first Black filmmaker to win the award?

I'm going to go with John Ridley.

John Ridley.

Nick, do you agree or disagree? I'll agree. He has the same last name as me.

I trust him. All right.

It was not John Ridley. It was Sir Steve McQueen. Watch out, buddy. Watch out.

We're getting the deception going. The Davis deception. Rude. A subterfuge. All right.

You guys watch out for Scott. I mean, really watch out for me. All right. So X gets the square on the missed question.

And Daniel, the board is yours. Where would you like to play next?

Well, I think, let's see. Mr. Finch, you're looking sharp up in that corner.

I'll go with you. All right. Mr. Finch, welcome to the squares.

Nice to be here, Dan. All right. Would you mind giving a quick intro for all your fans?

Yeah, certainly. I'm reporting to you from Marshfield, Massachusetts.

That's where I'm from. And I'm the person who walks around town with this hat on being asked, what are you, a cowboy or something?

By all the locals. I'm also based out of the San Francisco office at Cloudflare, and I work in community and inclusion on the people team.

Awesome. Well, welcome. Glad to have you and the cowboy hat.

Your question. A Kiss from a Rose earned this British artist three Grammy Awards in 1996.

Oh, come on. Extra points if you sing it. Come on.

I feel like this is a trick, because I'm wanting to- Yeah, and if you sing it, you can give him extra points.

You have to sing it. You have to sing it. Why are you doing this to me, Devin?

Because I know you can sing this, man. I think I'm going to go with Walrus.

All right.

Andrew says Walrus. Is that your final answer? Yes, it is. Okay. Do you agree or disagree with Walrus?

That's a big disagree. It's everyone knows the answer to that.

All right. All right. And if the squares want to start singing, I'll go ahead and test the board.

Oh, cousin. The wrong answer.

All right. And there we go. Cloudflare TV karaoke. We're going to cover all the boxes here.

All right. Nick, the board is yours. Where would you like to play?

I'll go with Scott again. All right. Scott, your question as center square.

You got all these date questions. When did Britain first pass an act officially outlawing the institution of slavery?

Yeah.

I have a number of dates in mind. I'm thinking- I bet you do. Oh, my goodness.

I'm thinking anywhere from 1963 to 1972. But then it doesn't align because we're in the last country to outlaw slavery.

I think Brazil might have been the last country to outlaw slavery.

And the UK might have been one of the earlier ones, the first ones, before the Civil War in the US.

So let me see if I can go back a hundred years a bit from there.

I think by outlawing slavery, they probably did so in some of their colonies as well.

And some of this history is coming back to me.

So I'm going to throw a date out there. And you better hold on to it firmly.

And I'm sticking with 1834. All right. That's a lot of Googling. That's what I saw from that.

That was some healthy- That's more like Bing, not Googling.

Yeah, that was some healthy Googling. All right. Google has a lot of answers for us.

All right. 1834. Do you agree or disagree? I'll agree. All right. It was 1834.

The Slavery Abolition Act was first started around 1833 and took effect August 1st, 1834.

So Nick, get center square. And I've got a competitive board.

Let's bring the board up.

Where would you like to play next, Daniel? Let's see. I'm going to have to go with Fallon.

All right. Fallon. Again, old nepotism come into play here.

Are we coming? I mean, you still might be rooting for the other side. All right.

Your question- I've got family too, Fallon. All right. Your question. On August 24th, 1981, Charles Chapman became the first Black swimmer to swim across this geographical water region.

Geographical water region.

What is that? Well, I'm going to go ahead and go with the geographical water region.

So that makes me think it's smaller than an ocean. So I'm going to run with a channel, the English channel, since that seems right.

Yeah.

All right. The English channel. Do you agree or disagree? I am going to agree.

All right. It is the English channel. Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the few geographical water region.

That's a very especially of like fame to swim.

It has to be swimmable. It's like, is it the Charles? What are we swimming? What are we doing?

All right. So X's take game two. And with that, there's the state of the board.

So we got Nick has a win. Daniel has a win. It's going to come down to game three.

And we haven't had a game three in a while. And I know we've got a few lonely squares out there.

So for game three, if you want to ping Roshni or Justin or Marlon, we can hopefully get them playing along as well.

And so game two was brought to you by Magic Transit.

When you don't want no scrub, Bing Center. Layer three, layer four protection from Cloudflare's global network.

And again, none of this was confirmed by marketing.

I just kind of want to do what I want on this show.

And we have a good time. And with that game three. All right, Daniel, the board is once again yours.

Where would you like to play? All right. Let's see. I will knock the dust off of Roshni's square.

I'll go that way. All right. Roshni, welcome to Silicon Valley squares.

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

Are you calling from Ohio this time around? Where are you calling in from?

No, I'm newly moved to Brooklyn, New York. So I'm calling from Brooklyn Heights.

And I'm on the recruiting team here at Cloudflare with Scott and Justin.

And I think for your next show, we need to give you some recruiting hot job plugs for those slides in the middle that you're posting there.

I have an inside joke slide that points to our recruiting team.

Okay. But if you guys have better joke better, like I'm happy to take advertisements.

I don't know. We didn't see that slide.

So I don't know what you're pushing for the recruiting team.

All righty. Bring it on. Bring it on. Yeah. I'm happy. I'm happy to take ads.

But Roshni, your question. What year was Naomi Campbell first on the cover of French Vogue?

Oh, man, I feel like she never ages. So it's really hard to tell. But I would have to go with maybe, maybe the year I was born.

1988, possibly. 1988. Do you agree or disagree?

And Roshni showing her? I don't even know how that'd be possible, though.

Again, she doesn't age. So that's wild. Oh, man. And given my age, I should know this, actually.

It's 1988.

I am going to agree. All right.

Agree is correct. It was 1988. So Daniel takes Roshni's square, and I'll bring up the board.

All right. There's the state of the board. We've got X and a whole bunch of empty spots.

Nick, where would you like to play? I'll go with Justin.

All right, Justin. Welcome to the squares. Would you mind giving a quick intro?

Yeah. Hey, my name is Justin. Longtime listener. First time player. I'm based in Austin, and I work on the recruiting team as a recruiting coordinator.

Awesome.

So Daniel, if you're looking for a job, this is the show to attend. All right.

There's plenty of access. Plenty of access. I have my resume with me. All right, Justin, your question.

This actor is rumored to be the next James Bond and starred in notable shows, including The Wire and Luther.

Who is this actor? I haven't seen Luther or The Wire, but Quarantine has made me catch up on a lot of pop culture, mainly the Housewives of Potomac.

But I think I remember reading that I think it's, I want to say Idris Elba.

All right.

The guess is Idris Elba. Do you agree or disagree? I'll agree.

All right. It is Idris Elba. Good answer. Good answer. I mean, I think he'd be a good Bond.

I would. Yeah. He's already a great DJ. I mean, he's also very handsome.

Very. Nick, it's the square. And Daniel, the board is yours. Where would you like to play next?

Let's see. I'm going right towards the center. Scott. All right, Scott, you're a popular center square today.

Your question.

I'm going to scroll all the way down on my notes.

So I'm like, you know, normal hosts that have the cue cards.

This person was named the world's most interesting mathematician in 2018.

Interesting.

Not a date this time, buddy. Yeah, mathematicians could be interesting. So I'm good at guessing.

Shots fired. Sorry, I hate math. I hate math coming out.

I'm good at guessing dates, you know, because you can just pick one in the middle somewhere.

I'm choosing names can be very tough. I'm trying to guess the world's most interesting mathematician.

If I look at. Who knows anything about the Nigerian currency?

And what it's one one hand up. Great.

Naira. So it's a it's a very famous currency. And I think this person came up with the Nigerian currency.

No, that's a joke. It's a bad joke. But from memory, I think the person who was named the most interesting mathematician, the first name is very likely tied to the Nigerian currency was named after Nigerian currency and goes by the name of Naira.

Am I the only person who's willing to believe anything Scott says?

You're so convincing. I'm like, OK, sure. So we got the first name.

I'm looking forward to how you're going to back into the last name. With the last name, we can just choose anything.

I mean, if the person's a magician, a mathematician, a magician, we can go with one of our favorite magicians.

Give me some names.

Some of them start with C. Who is it? Copperfield. Copperfield, Chamberlain.

Well, how about we combine Naira and Chamberlain and let's see what we come up with.

I don't know. All right. Naira Chamberlain, the most convoluted answer I think we've ever had in the squares.

What a journey. Yeah, I was riveted.

I have to tell the whole story. It was great. Very in-brain with our culture, for sure.

Do you agree or disagree with Naira Chamberlain? I don't even know what to believe.

I'm going to agree with it because it was a good elaborate story, if anything.

All right. It is Naira Chamberlain, the world's most interesting mathematician of 2018.

With that, we have time for one more question. I'll bring up the board.

Nick, you can round us out. I'll go with Marwan, please. Oh, come on.

All right, Marwan. Welcome to the squares. You almost escaped. I almost escaped.

Would you mind giving a quick intro? I'm Marwan Fayyad. I'm a research lead on this side of the Atlantic.

Well, actually, the British, the European, Middle East, Africa side of the Atlantic was Cloudflare Research.

Awesome. Glad to have you.

Your question to wrap us up is, what best-selling author and NYU professor, Zadie Smith, published her critically acclaimed novel, Swing Time, in what year?

So, oh my goodness.

I'm going to say, I want to say 19, early 20th century. And then I remind myself, wait a second, wait a second, African-American, NYU, there's no African-American professor at NYU, likely, at that time.

And so, I actually know this, not because I remember the title of the book, but it occurred to me that this mismatch would happen, the way the researcher thinks, I suppose.

This book had to have been published more recently.

And if I remember reading about this book, I want to say 2016.

You're a better storyteller than I am.

Oh, that's a great honor coming from you, Scott.

All right. That's the most interesting square. 2016, do you agree or disagree, Nick?

I'll agree. All right. It was 2016. And with that, episode 15 of Silicon Valley Squares comes to an end.

Thank you, Squares, for taking the time. For those watching the live stream or catching a recording, thank you for joining us in our silliness, and have a great morning, evening, or good night, or afternoon.

Have fun. Day. Day, morning. Take care, guys.