🌱 Silicon Valley Squares

Hello, hello everyone. Welcome to yet another episode of Silicon Valley Squares. I'm your host from the West Coast, Dan Hollinger, and we're glad to have you here.

Whether you're catching the live stream or one of the recordings, hopefully you're having a wonderful morning, evening or afternoon.

If you've never been to the show, welcome.

Today is a special day. As you might notice by all of my guests in squares, bright green backgrounds, we are celebrating Earth Day here at Cloudflare.

We are being sponsored by Greenflare, which is one of the employee resource groups here at the company.

So buckle in, get some water, refresh yourself. We're going to have a lot of fun covering a whole bunch of Earth Day trivia.

I don't know about my world's on fire.

How about yours? That's the way I like it. And I never get bored.

So with that, we'll kick off to the show. If you've never caught the show before, I have two guests here, Zadoon and Amy.

Each one is trying to get a tic-tac-toe.

That means three across, three diagonal or three down. They do that by asking our lovely squares trivia questions and either agreeing or disagreeing with them.

So with that, I'll kick things off with some quick introductions.

Zadoon, welcome to the squares. Welcome back. Would you mind giving a quick introduction?

Sure. It's nice to be back, Dan. I'm Zadoon, systems engineer on the cache team at Cloudflare.

Awesome. And you're going up against Amy, another titan of the squares.

Welcome back, Amy. Hi, it's great to be here. What a thrill.

What a thrill. I mean, Earth Day, what a great day. I am an office coordinator in Cloudflare, San Francisco, and I love the Earth.

Awesome. I'm here to crush Zadoon, though, also.

Amy and I, we go way back. We're friends, but today we are no longer friends.

Oh, it's more frenemies? Exactly. Frenemies. Frenemies. All right.

So with frenemies in mind, Zadoon, you have first choice on game one. Where would you like to kick things off?

Strategically, the center square would be the best, but I've always wanted to be the center square.

So I kind of don't like the center square, but I'll go with Annika.

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

Hello. So glad to be here. I'm Annika.

I'm a product manager here at Cloudflare and a member of Green Cloud. Happy Earth Day, everybody.

Awesome.

Welcome to the squares. Your question to kick off game one, Earth Day has its own theme song.

True or false? Okay. True or false. So I get an easy one. Zadoon, you got a 50-50 shot.

I mean, bonus points if you sing it. I don't know about that one, but there's like so many good options.

There's so many good Earth theme songs.

I mean, assuming it exists. Assuming it exists. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't have to name what song it is.

Just say whether that's true or false. Correct. All right.

Feels like someone would have written one at some point because Earth Day's been around for 51 years at this point.

So I'm going to go with true. I definitely have to agree with Annika.

At some point, somebody would have written a song.

All right. The answer is true. It was written in 2013 by an Indian poet named Abhay Kumar.

And if I had better production values, we could play it. But this is what it is.

And so X gets the square. You could still sing it. That's available to you.

I am not musically talented. That was not a gift I was given. However, I do have the state of the board.

And Amy, your choice, where would you like to play next?

Well, you know, my friend, compatriot, and, you know, green cloud, you know, center square is already taken up.

So I think I'm gonna go to Mariana. All right.

Hi, I'm Mariana.

I'm on the Places team, same team as Amy, and I'm based in San Francisco.

Dan, you're muted.

All right. We're back. Mariana. Yes. Where are you calling in from?

Welcome to the squares. Thank you. I already introduced myself in your absence, but I'm calling from San Francisco for those who missed it the first time.

Awesome.

And which team are you working with here at Cloudflare? I'm on the Places team, same as Amy.

All right. So I will catch up to everyone else now. Mariana, your question.

Climate change has been known to impact this with regards to sea turtles.

What is this? Climate change has been known to impact this. Vacation spots.

Vacation spots. Let's see.

I'm guessing climate change impacts all life and their offspring.

So I'm going to say sea turtle populations.

Climate change has been known to impact sea turtle populations.

Sea turtle populations. Amy, do you agree or disagree? I feel like we're looking for something a little more specific.

I think what it's impacting is probably the sea turtle nesting sites.

And so I'm going to say that that's what Mariana was going for and that we're both right.

I saw Mariana wink. I sat in on it. I don't trust this.

I didn't wink. I just have small eyes. So is that a disagree? Is that the nicest disagree?

I mean, I'm agreeing to disagree that we needed a little more specificity, but she does know what she's talking about is what I'm saying.

All right. Well, disagree is correct. The answer I was looking for was gender.

Warming water temperatures actually impact the gender of sea turtle hatchlings.

In which direction? I did not put that in my notes. I'm going to have to fire my producer.

Harsh.

Sorry, Amy. I'm the producer. That's okay. I was also wrong, but I didn't have to know.

All right. Here's the state of the board. Where would you like to play next?

Where would I go next? Let's go Gabriella. All right. Gabriella, welcome to the squares.

Would you mind giving a quick intro? Hello. Hi, everyone. So I'm Gabby and I am in the Cloudflare TV team.

I'm a coordinator. And yeah, I'm in New York City at the moment.

Awesome. Happy to have you here. Your question, this country emits the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.

Which country is that?

Oh, I am going to... I'm between the US or China. So I'm just going to have to go with the US.

All right. The US. Zidoune, do you agree or disagree? Gabriella, are you telling me the truth?

You went twice. US.

I'm going to have to disagree. I think it's still China. All right. Disagree is the correct choice.

China produces about 28% of carbon dioxide emissions. The United States is about 15%.

So with that, Zidoune gets the square, and I'll bring the board back up.

Amy, where would you like to play next? We got a competitive... I'm going to go with my boy, Carl.

Carl Henrik Smith. All right, Carl. For the block.

Welcome back for the block. The game is riding on you. I don't know how I feel about that.

And also like all my confidence and my whole weekend. You know what I mean?

It's a lot. It's a lot. Pressure. No pressure. I just don't have anything else really, you know what I mean, to hold on to right now during the pandemic.

So no pressure. That's not fair. Amy has strong bonds with everyone here, except me.

What is this? All right, Carl. Here's a chance to ask Zidoune for an iPad sharing.

Yeah, here's the chance. Carl, would you mind giving a quick introduction of yourself?

Sure. Hey, everyone. My name is Carl Henrik, or KH, and I am on the sales team in the Bay Area.

Awesome. Glad to have you. Your question for either the win or for the block.

You can't get the win. But when gases in our atmosphere trap heat and block it from escaping the planet, this is known as the what?

So I went to the Conservatory of Flowers last week and I felt trapped and unable to escape myself.

So I'm going to say that it's the greenhouse gas effect. And that is my final answer.

All right. The greenhouse effect. Amy, do you agree or disagree?

Yeah, I'm going to agree. I'm going to agree. It's the greenhouse effect.

It is the greenhouse effect. It's like stifling and warm and yeah. Yep. That's what we were looking for.

Just like a greenhouse. Yep. Scientists are good with the metaphors.

Must have missed that lesson in school. All right. Here's the state of the board.

Zidoune, where would you like to play next? This is a tough spot here.

Let's go for Candice. All right.

Candice, welcome back. Where are you dialing in from? I'm from beautiful Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn right now.

Yep. Hi, I'm Candice and I'm on the pricing team.

On the pricing team. So how much is the show costing us right now? You can ballpark it.

You know, it's fine. How much are we spending on them suits? As if I haven't just been wearing the same one every single episode.

I can't even expense my dry cleaning bill.

So I don't know. All right, Candice, your question. Almost 100 of these animals are killed per day for the ivory found in their tusks.

I think this one is probably elephants, unless I'm missing something really major.

So I'm going to say elephants.

All right. Probably elephants. Do you agree or disagree, Zidoune?

I like the confidence in your answer. I'm going to go with it. Let's go for elephants.

All right. It is elephants. About 100 a day killed due to poaching.

Dislike button. Dislike. Dislike. Stop doing that. Bad humans. And that was actually the trick with finding trivia for Earth Day is trying to find a mix of like optimistic and not just purely pessimistic trivia.

So with that, Amy, where would you like to play next for game one?

Well, you know, I hit him up at the last minute and I was like, hey, you should be on this show.

I'm going to go for Jay.

So he feels included and also to Black Zidoune. All right, Jay. The last minute square to Black Zidoune.

Welcome to the squares. Yes. Excited to be here. I'm part of the solutions engineering team and I'm based out of San Francisco.

Awesome. Glad to have you.

And if we have any technical questions, I'll be sure to let you know.

Your question is Earth Day was founded after a massive oil spill leaked millions of gallons off the coast of this Southern California city.

Which city? Los Angeles.

I like that city a lot. So I'm just going to go with that one. Los Angeles, the city of oil or oily people.

That also helps there. Definitely. I have friends in L.A.

I mean, yeah.

So L.A., I guess I don't know exactly where the oil spilled. I mean, you know, if it just spilled in L .A., wouldn't it have like kind of gone everywhere?

Like, I guess I'll agree with L.A., even though I don't know if it's like more like Santa Barbara, because I went to Santa Barbara once and like I got covered in oil.

But I'm just going to agree. All right. Well, we were looking for Santa Barbara.

It was Santa Barbara. Oh, how unfortunate. I just don't know. Like Santa Barbara is like an hour away from L.A.

So to me, this feels like the same thing, but OK.

No, no, no, not the same thing. L.A. person would agree with Amy, I think, probably.

That Santa Barbara is just included. That's just North L.A. Traffic stretches to there.

All right. Well, Zidun, you now have an opening. I can't give you the win off of a miss, but you're welcome to pick your next square.

J.

All right, J. Here's again. Let's do this. I'd be fair to Amy. So I have. What do you mean?

No, just the game very fast. Don't worry about it. J., all I'm going to say is if you have any cash related questions, I'll help you later on.

Don't worry.

If you have any cash feature requests like now. Exactly. Yeah. Your question for the potential win in 1990, Earth Day went what?

Went happy birthday.

Someday. Are you just stretching? Are you just like you're just reaching?

Yeah. Maybe it was not celebrated that day for some reason.

I'm not sure. So I would say it was missing that year.

I think they were not celebrated that year. Something like that sort of absent, maybe.

1990, the year Earth Day forgot. Zidun, do you agree or disagree?

I think isn't that when it went global?

I don't know. Do you agree or disagree with J.?

Don't ask me. It's not like I have the answers right in front of me. Dan, you're not helping me.

I disagree with J. All right. Disagree is correct. In 1990, Earth Day, which was initially founded in the United States, went global.

So with that, Zidun takes game one.

I'll share the state of the board. And we'll keep chugging along.

It's okay, Amy. When is Flat Earth Day, though? I'm just I'm waiting for this one.

I don't know. When the sun rises in the west. Okay. Yeah. So if anyone has not caught this show, game one was brought to you by the Cloudflare Partner Network.

Why?

Because I'm on the partner team and I built this show. So if you'd like to learn more about becoming a Cloudflare partner and see what kind of enablement and trading material we have, what kind of joint account planning and how you can help us build a better Internet together, feel free to check out portal .Cloudflarepartners.com.

And with that, we'll move on to game two. Game two, Amy, the choice is yours.

What would you like to play next? I'm going to do the classic tic-tac-toe style thing.

And don't worry, anybody who hasn't been chosen yet, because I am going to pick you.

But I'm going to go with my girl, Annika, here for the center square.

And we're going to crush it this time. All right. LA, Santa Barbara, you know, whatever, whatever.

I got another location question. So we'll see.

Annika, your question to kick off game two. The founder of Earth Day was a senator from which state?

Okay. So we learned earlier in the show that Earth Day was started after an oil spill in Santa Barbara, which is in California.

So I'm going to pick California.

All right, California. Amy, do you agree with that logic or disagree?

That makes a lot of sense. But I think for this one, I'm going to disagree.

Because California gets a lot of credit for things, but they don't always do everything.

Why don't you? Why are you disagreeing with Annika? Annika is your friend.

You should agree with Annika. She is my friend. All right. Disagree is correct.

It was started from, based off of Representative Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin.

Midwest. Midwest. All right. Here is the state of the board. Amy's got center square.

So Dune, where would you like to play next? Okay. Let's go with Sophia.

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

Yes. Hello. My name is Sophia and I work on the learning and development team, mostly doing new hire orientation.

Happy to be here. Awesome, Sophia. Glad to have you.

Your question. More than 30% of food produced globally is wasted. True or false?

Well, I'm thinking that's a lot of wasted bacon. But I'm for sure going to go with true because we're Americans.

Oh, the world. Well, so was it the world or US? It was the world.

Okay, great. Either way, I'm going with that's accurate. So agree. Going with true.

So Dune, do you agree or disagree? I have to agree with Sophia on this one.

It's unfortunate. All right. It is 30%. About 30% is spoiled, thrown out, lost during travel.

So a lot of food goes to waste every year. All right. Let me bring the board back up.

And Amy, it is your choice. Keep plugging along. I'm going to pick Carrie Linder, our fabulous design goddess and lover of the planet.

Thank you.

Nicest intro ever. Yeah, a lot of square love. Hopefully, you can get the right answer for her.

Oh, gosh, I hope so. Your designs are amazing too, I have to say.

Thank you. Be on my side. Oh, gosh, who can flatter me more? I don't know. All right, Carrie, your question.

The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22nd of this year.

Well, we know it wasn't this year. There was oil all over California. Nixon was in office, probably.

It was 1970. Gaylord Nelson is the senator from Wisconsin, caring about our Earth.

I see Carrie's been paying attention.

Yeah, yeah. And that's a lot of background to this answer.

We like to teach on this. I agree, I agree. I agree with Carrie. All right, Amy agrees, and that is correct.

1970. And yet, here we are.

And there's still oil in Santa Barbara, apparently. No, it stuck to me.

It made me very sad. They haven't cleaned it up yet. What have they been doing?

I don't know. It's hard to get rid of. All right, Zadoon, here's the state of the board.

Where would you like to play next? I mean, it's obvious. This is time for Andrew.

Andrew. Andrew! I've got answers for you, Zadoon. All right, Andrew, another titan of the squares.

Welcome back. Would you mind giving a quick intro?

It's always good to be here. Yep, I'm Andrew Fitch. I'm based out of San Francisco, but I'm in Austin, Texas right now, and I work on the people team in community and inclusion.

Awesome, glad to have you. Roughly 90% of crops are dependent on these creatures for pollination.

Oh, yeah, I do know this one. You ready for this, Zadoon?

I'm ready. You ready for this truth right now? I'm ready for the truth.

Go for it. Okay, cool. So this was a creature that I just used to love when I was a kid, because it would always, in addition to pollinating things, would squirm all over the place and just have a good time underneath the ground and top of the ground.

What I'm getting at here is that this creature is the worm. The worm.

Zadoon, do you agree or disagree? I don't know about that, Andrew. I've seen the bee movie, and I'm going to have to say it's the bee.

No. So that's a disagree?

That's a disagree. We're going to use the Seinfeld movie for scientific accuracy?

That's exactly it. All righty. Well, that is correct. It is the bee that is the primary pollinator on this good planet.

So, Amy, the board is yours. We've got a tough game, too.

Where would you like to play next? Yeah, you know, it's a lot of challenges.

I'm going to go back to our friend Carl, just because, you know, it's the strategic move up in the corner, blocking Zadoon, but also, you know, potentially giving me some, like, Firmeza towards the win.

And everybody's been picked, right?

Everybody's already had a chance to share. Correct. Everyone's been picked.

So we can just tug along. It's just straight trivia from now on. Yeah, we can run and leave now.

All right, Carl, your question. All right, Carl. Which president created the EPA?

Only for the high-stakes questions, Amy. This is great. Ooh, that's a good one.

So this is a good question. I would naturally incline myself to go with a president that has some kind of environmental background that we know of.

But unfortunately, or fortunately, I think somebody perhaps might have mentioned this earlier.

So I'm going to go with Carrie's response here and say it was under Nixon.

Final answer. I don't like that answer. All right, Nixon. Do you agree or disagree?

Tricky, tricky dick. He did some good things. I'm going to agree. He started the EPA.

Or it came about while he was the president. All right, that is correct.

He did start the EPA. And with that, you've successfully got the block. Zadoon, the board is yours.

Okay, I guess, Gabriella, I need your help this time. Okay.

All right, Gabriella, your question for game two. Again, April 22nd, which happens to be today, and it's Earth Day, is also the birth date of this famous conservationist, after which a popular tourist attraction north of San Francisco is named.

Who is this famous conservationalist? Or you can say conservationalist like five times fast.

I also probably will give it to you. Um, so I did live in San Francisco.

So I've been to this place. So I would suggest you trust my answer.

And I'm going to say John Muir, John Muir. Yeah. John Muir. Do you agree or disagree?

I don't know. A lot of people shook their head, yes. But that could be a trick, because I'm already here on Amy's side.

Oh, you're trying to get advice from the squares?

That's always a dangerous, dangerous game. That's right. Gabriella, are you lying to me?

You just have to trust me. I disagree.

All right, you disagree. That is, that is a wrong choice. So it was John Muir, also born on April 22nd.

So Amy, once again, I cannot give you the win. Okay, I'm going to get the win for myself, Dan.

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

I was just like, I don't think that's right. Even though I have like a parking, I already scheduled my parking pass to go there this weekend to Muir Woods.

I'm going to, I'm going to go. I'm going to go with Gabby. All right, Gabby.

Here we go for, for game two for the win. You can go with someone else. I did.

It's true. Thank you. I appreciate that. She's going for blood. This is, this is serious.

All right, Gabriela, your question. United Nations calls Earth Day by this more matronly name.

I think I've always called Earth like Mother Earth, right?

So I'm going to say International Mother Earth Day. Yeah, that's my answer. Sounds legit.

It's definitely more matronly. So yeah, Mother Earth Day. Sure. Let's, let's go with, I'm going to agree with, I'm going to agree.

Even though I don't, I don't really know.

I mean, if you don't know, maybe you should disagree. All right.

It is called International Mother Earth Day. So Amy takes game two. Let me bring up the state of the board.

Gabriela, I'm sorry for not trusting you. I mean, I was doing some faking.

I was really like shaking my head like she was wrong. The thing is you were shaking your head, no?

And everybody else was shaking their head, yes?

But, but, you know, I thought you're all in it together. Yeah, it's, it's a rough game if you're trying to play like 4D chess with the, with the, you know, tic-tac-toe.

All right. And with that, I will kick off. Game two was brought to you by Cloudflare Magic Transit.

When you don't want no scrub being centers.

Magic Transit, Cloudflare solution for layer three DDoS protection.

Protect your network with Cloudflare. And we can jump into game three.

We probably only have time for about one more question. So with that, Zadoon, who would you like to finish this episode off with?

Okay. Let's go back to Mariana.

All right. Mariana, you're the last question of the show. No crash. All right.

Oh, here's a fun one. Okay. 2020 and 2016 are effectively tied for this record.

What record? The worst years ever. I would, I would count that. Yeah. Um, the record for the, in my heart, the worst years ever, probably in Earth Day, the least pollution ever.

Just because I'm thinking in 2020, there's like a lot less air pollution.

That's the best I got for you. Sorry, it's not an iPad, but it's an earnest effort for you, Zadoon.

So I just want to make sure here. If I kept this right, I win, right?

But if I get this wrong, I lose. In your heart. In your heart.

Okay. So this is for all the marbles. Okay. In your heart. Okay. And I can't call my parents to get the answer.

No, there is no phone a friend on, on the squares.

Okay. So in this case, I disagree. I think it's probably the hottest or something.

If it's related to Earth Day. All right. Disagree is correct. Those were the two hottest years on record.

And with that, we'll bring our game three to a close.

We're out of time. And again, thank you everyone for jumping in and catching the show, whether you're catching us live or one of the recordings.

We're glad to have you.

And hopefully you guys got a few good laughs from us. Thank you to all my squares and my guests.

If you have any pets, now would be the time to show them off.

Show me your pets. Where's that cat, Annika? Is that a cat? I saw a cat.

I demand a cat. Oh, there's Mariana's cat. Oh my gosh. Thank you, everybody.

All right. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.