Silicon Valley Squares (Intern Takeover)
Presented by: Dan Hollinger, Interns
Originally aired on October 22, 2023 @ 3:30 AM - 4:00 AM EDT
A send up of Hollywood Squares where Cloudflare experts fill the celebrity squares and answer high and low-level Cloudflare questions to help two guest stars (customers, AEs or new hires) get a a tic-tac-toe, or possibly the Silicon Valley equivalent - a TCP handshake (SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK)
English
Game Show
Intern
Transcript (Beta)
Hello, hello, welcome everyone to yet another episode of Silicon Valley Squares. Thank you for joining us, whether you're catching us via the live stream or one of the recordings.
Hopefully you're having a wonderful good morning, evening, or good night.
I'm your host Dan Hollinger. Here today we are going to be celebrating some of the interns at Cloudflare.
We'll be doing that by asking various questions about Gen Z, Gen Z technology, a few college questions, basically all the things that I had to look up because I had no idea.
But whether you're an intern, whether you're an intern at heart, whether you just, you know, like me, still continue to make things up as you go along and hope it sounds convincing, you know, welcome to Silicon Valley Squares.
If you're new to the show, it's rather straightforward.
I have two contestants here, Zach and Anjana. Each of them is trying to get a tic-tac-toe.
That means three across, three down, or three diagonally.
We do this by asking our lovely squares trivia questions and seeing what they know.
So with that, I'm going to hand it off to Anjana for a quick introduction.
Hi, I am a tech support engineer at Cloudflare, joined two months ago.
And I came into Cloudflare as part of path forward returning program where I have had a career break of about eight years before that.
Prior to that, I worked for eight years.
So now I'm at Cloudflare tech support engineer. Awesome. Glad to have you.
Thank you. All right. And Zach, would you mind giving a quick introduction of yourself?
Yeah. Hi, Anjana. I'm Zach. I am a friend of Dan's. I live in San Francisco.
I use Cloudflare knowingly and unknowingly. Okay. That's good to know. Well, if you need support, now is the time.
Although half the squares are interns.
So if you just need coffee, also we can oblige there. Oh, controversial. All right.
I think we pay our interns. We pay our interns, don't we? Yes. Okay. With that out of the way, Anjana, the board is yours.
Where would you like to play first? So I'll pick Ellie first, center square.
All right. Ellie, center square. Welcome to the squares.
Would you mind giving a quick introduction? I would love to give an introduction.
And thanks for having me, Dan. I'm so excited to be here. My name is Ellie Jameson and I run the intern program here.
And so I get to hang out with all these amazing people on the call throughout the summer.
And I'm very excited to play.
Awesome. Glad to have you here and have all the interns. So the first question of game one to kick us off, in 2012, Facebook bought this competing social media app.
Hmm. 2012.
Okay. Before my time, but I think I would have to say, I think I would have to say Instagram.
All right.
For the gram. Anjana, do you agree or disagree? Agree. All right. That is correct.
They bought competing platform Instagram. And now everyone has to take pictures of their food for the gram.
All right.
So let's bring the board back. Zach, it is your turn. Where would you like to play?
I'm going with Alyssa Wang. All right. Alyssa, welcome to the squares. Where are you dialing in from?
Um, I'm from sunny California, a little two hours away from the bay.
And I'm a software intern on Cloudflare gateway. Awesome. Glad to have you here and glad to have you as an intern.
Hopefully, hopefully you've had a fulfilling summer.
Your question, this New Zealand artist released the song Royals in 2012.
We just got a streak of 2012 questions so far. Honestly, I was 12 at the time.
So let's see if my memory works. And like, when I think of New Zealand, I just think about don't they have like more sheep than people?
Royals.
That was a person that's on the song, right? Yes, we're looking for the singer.
Or the sheep. The sheep. Lord.
Lord. All right, Zach, do you agree or disagree with Lord? We're a good match because I agree.
Awesome. How many singers are there from New Zealand? That's my question.
Like two. It's Lord and the other sheep. I mean, that just sounds like a band name.
All right. With that, we've got an even competitive board on Janna. Control is back to you.
Where would you like to play next? I will pick Saurav. Diagonal.
All right. Saurav, welcome to the Square. So would you mind giving a quick introduction?
For sure. Yes. So my name is Saurav. I'm a data analyst intern with the acquisition team.
And I'm dialing in from San Diego. So, woohoo! Yay, San Diego!
That was the most unenthusiastic move I've heard. I love San Diego. I mean, to be fair, it's San Diego.
Okay, fair enough. Again, no hate to San Diego. Just putting that out there.
All right, Saurav, glad to have you. And again, hope you had an amazing internship here at Cloudflare.
Your question. What is the name of Cosmo and Wanda's baby on the cartoon The Fairly Odd Parents?
Right, okay. I don't know. I think I'll go ahead and say Phineas.
What do you think?
Phineas? I don't know. That's my answer. All right. You're going with Phineas.
Yeah, no idea. I would disagree. All right. Disagree is a good choice.
Do any of the Squares know the name of the baby? I believe I do. All right.
You can go ahead and give it a shot. Otherwise, I'll tell everyone. Uh, Poof.
Correct. The baby's name was Poof. All right. Zach, way to go. Here's the state of the board.
Maybe I'm confusing Millennial and Gen Z. What are generations anyway?
All right. Zach, where would you like to play next? I'm going to go for Leo.
All right. Leo, upper left. Welcome to the Squares. Thanks for having me.
I'm here from Austin, and I'm a first -time intern on the engineering team. All right.
First-time intern, long-time watcher, I assume? Yeah. Like, this better have been all your cover letters.
Like, by the way, I watch Silicon Valley Squares religiously, and therefore, that's why I should become an intern.
All right. Leo, you have an acronym question.
What does the term SMH stand for? I'm going to have to go with shaking my head.
All right. Shaking my head. Zach, do you agree or disagree?
Shaking my head, yes.
All right. That is correct. With that, you get upper left. Yes.
Sorry about it. All right. So, Zach, with the block on Jono, where would you like to play next?
I would play with Gabriela. All right.
Gabriela, welcome back to the Squares. Hello. Hi, everyone. I was a former intern, and now I work at Cloudflare on Cloudflare TV, and I'm dialing in from New York City right now.
Awesome. Glad to have you, especially since you show the process works.
We do eventually pay interns. All right. Gabriela, your question.
Which artist made the song The Cha-Cha Slide? Ooh. So, I only recently heard this song because I'm not from the U.S., but I learned the name, and I'm pretty sure it's DJ Casper.
Okay. I'll go with her. I mean, she's pretty sure she's learned the name.
All right. DJ Casper is correct. I think they call it out in the first five seconds, don't they?
Yeah. And isn't there supposed to be a part two and a part three?
I've only ever heard what's played at weddings, so I have no idea.
Gabby, can you sing it? Oh, yeah. I have lots of song questions. If anyone can answer in song or with the proper lyrics, I'll give bonus points.
Are we allowed to sing the copyrighted songs on Cloudflare TV?
I'm sure under 20 seconds. Under 20 seconds.
So, 19 seconds. Got it. Well, yeah. We'll play it safe or just break into a hum or just sing it so badly that no one will sue us.
I think all that's fair.
I like that. All right. So, with that, Anjana gets the square. Zach, where would you like to go next?
I'm going to go with Eric.
All right. Going with Eric. Eric, welcome to the squares.
Hi. Great to be here. I'm a security engineering intern from living right now in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Well, welcome. Glad to have you. And again, hope you had an amazing summer.
Your question, Shake It Up was a Disney Channel show in 2010 that starred Bella Thorne and this actress.
Okay. Looking back to my childhood, I'm going to say it was Miley Cyrus.
All right.
Miley Cyrus. Is that your final answer? Yep. Awesome. Zach, do you agree or disagree?
I disagree. All right. Do you happen to know who it was? Zendaya? Nah, that is correct.
Zach knows what's up. Yeah. I think Zach's watched a lot of Disney Channel.
This is what I'm learning. That was my childhood, too. All right. So, let me bring back the squares.
And Anjana, the choice is yours. Where are we playing next?
I'll play with Meyer. All right. Meyer, the pressure is on. This is a potential game winner.
I only play game winners. Thanks so much for having me on here, Dan.
I'm Meyer from the New York office, and I've been a software engineering intern with Magic Transit this summer.
Yeah, let's do this. Awesome. So, you just got to add to the magic.
Yes, Meyer. I'm counting on you for the magic. Well, we'll allow you to put in a pull request for this trivia answer, and we'll see what happens when we review it.
All right. Your question. Gen Z dance and music trends typically get started on this viral video sharing app.
Which app?
I'm going to go with TikTok.
I agree.
Thank you. All right. It is TikTok. I mean, I remember it wasn't the millennial version Vine.
Didn't we have fun with Vine? Yes. I love Vine. All the Vine fans out there that are showing their age.
I was hoping Meyer was going to say Vine.
Come on, Meyer. It's actually the YouTube comments section. And then there was Musical.ly in between Vine and TikTok that everyone forgot about.
No, I actually remember using Musical.ly back in the day.
That was fun. I mean, if we want to go that far, back in my day, I remember Winamp.
That was the true music back then. All right.
So, with that, Anjana takes game one with three X's diagonally. And game one was brought to you by...
Let's see. What order did I put this in? Game one was brought to you by the Cloudflare Partner Network.
Why? Because I'm part of the partner team here at Cloudflare, and I put this show together.
So, if you'd like to learn more about becoming a partner, feel free to check out portal .Cloudflarepartners.com.
You can learn more about enablement and training, co -marketing materials, and joint account planning.
And with that out of the way, we're back to game two.
So, we got a clean board. And Zach, you can kick us off. All right.
I learned my lesson. I'm going to start with Ellie. All right. Ellie, center square.
Your question to kick off game two. In what year did Britney Spears shave her head?
Okay.
So, it's the same year that she came out with the album, Breakout, which was my middle school anthem.
So, it had to be 2008. Let's go. All right.
2008. Zach, do you agree or disagree? I disagree. I remember it differently.
And 2008 was a big year for me, too. All right. Well, disagree is correct.
It was 2007. Yes. That's what I remember. So, it must have been right before the album came out.
All right. So, let's get the point on the board. If anyone wants to sing the, like, I don't know, Jeopardy theme music, I need sound effects.
So, if I can hire an intern for that, you know, I'll be well on my way. We'll do anything for you.
Don't pay us. If my stuff starts making sound, we have problems.
All right. So, we got first square on the board for game two. Anjana, where would you like to take us next?
I'll pick Justin. All right. Justin, welcome to the squares.
Hey, Anjana. Great pick. My name is Justin, coming to you from the Austin office, and I work with the recruiting team as a recruiting coordinator.
Glad to have you, Justin. Thank you for coming in. Hopefully, you can recruit more squares in the future for us.
This Latin phrase means foster son, and it's typically used to describe someone who went to a particular college.
Foster son.
Foster son. I want to say alumnus. Yeah, I think I'll go with him because he said somebody who went to college.
Yeah, I'll go with him.
Thank you, Justin. That's a solid point. Yeah. All right. That is correct.
Alumnus or alumni is based off of the root Latin word that means foster son.
I definitely knew that. That's knowledge that's in the front of my brain all the time.
And like most families, you know, it's all about racking up as much financial debt as possible.
Of course. Okay, so back to the board. Zach, you're up.
Where do you like to play next? I'm going to go with Gabriela. All right, Gabriela.
Your question for game two. An overly obsessed fan is called this in Gen Z slang.
So I'm technically a millennial, so I'm not really sure. So I will have to go with a groupie.
I think that's a term for fans. So I'm going to say groupie. All right, groupie.
I'm a BTS groupie for sure. Are you waiting for my answer?
Yeah. Do you agree or disagree with groupie? I disagree.
That doesn't sound like Gen Z slang to me. Disagree is correct. Can any of the interns help us out?
And what is the proper word? Don't you say ship? Oh, stan.
Ship is also definitely more than a BTS groupie.
I thought ship was more about the relationship between characters in media or fictional media.
You're like, I ship that.
That's more like, yeah. All right, I'm going to stan for Gen Z then. I was going to say groupie is like too coherent.
That actually relates to the term. And that's like, that's almost boomer level, isn't it?
That's, you know, we're going to get a little pedantic with our slang.
Okay. All right, so Anjana, the board is yours.
Where do you like to play next? Okay, I'll have to go with Mayer this time.
All right, Mayer for the block. Are you ready, Mayer? The pressure's on. Let's rock and roll.
All right. How many colleges make up the Ivy League? Let's see.
How many did I get rejected from? Hold on, I'm running some numbers. I mean, they get you on the application fees.
It's a football league, so it has to be a power of two.
I'm going to guess 16. All right, there's no way you got rejected from that many colleges.
No, I disagree. 16 is way too much. You got waitlisted on some of them.
That's right. All right, so Anjana thinks 16 is too much. So do you agree or disagree?
I disagree with them. All right, disagree is correct. There are currently eight considered Ivy League colleges.
And as a quick history lesson, apparently there were four.
And when written in a Roman numeral of, like, IV, that is where the IV comes from in Ivy League.
I just assumed they were all covered in, like, IV and leafy brick walls.
I think, yeah, that came, that background came about later or when someone started spelling it with a IVY.
All right, so here is the state of the board.
Zach, where are we going next? Okay.
I can almost see the name.
Let me move this. Oh, there we go. Is it Mariana?
That's what I'm going to do. Yeah. Hello, I'm Mariana. Thank you, Zach.
I am an intern at Heart reporting from San Francisco and a Silicon Valley Square alumna, to use the word of the day.
Am I doing it right? Hey, I think introducing the word of the day sounds fun.
But yeah, Mariana is a professional here.
In quotation marks, sure. Like our interns, I don't pay Mariana. No, unfortunately not.
All right, Mariana, glad to have you back. As always, your question.
What is DM an acronym for? Back in my day, DM, to use another word of the day that popped up here, stood for Draco Malfoy.
And I would ship him with Hermione Granger when I would read fan fiction back in the whatever day.
This is me pretending I- That is a controversial take.
That is not that controversial. She's blasphemous. No, let me, okay.
Dan, remind me, I can write an entire Silicon Valley Square episode just from Harry Potter trivia.
So we'll talk about that later. Hey, I don't think that's canon.
I'm happy to host. No, we're not talking about canon. We're talking about who I ship, who I used to ship when I was 12.
Moving on from that, in my heart, DM makes me think of Draco Malfoy.
Shout out to Tom Felton, who may or may not be watching this.
But I think for the Gen Z-ers, DM stands for direct message.
All right. Direct message. Do we agree or disagree? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All right.
That is correct. DM in probably all text slang is direct message. Whether it's Draco Malfoy, we can take that offline.
We can. Which, from my understanding for Gen Z, does not exist.
There's no such thing. To be fair, Draco Malfoy, Tom Felton in SNL, I think, shared that someone tweeted at him, can I slither in when he said he was going to go to bed?
And he said, I almost DMed that person. True story. Look it up, the Internet.
And the joke comes full circle. Amazing. All right. Anjana, the board is yours.
Where would you like to play next? Elisa. All right, Elisa for the block.
Your question for round two. Oh, and here we're going to go with the non-Harry Potter book series.
The Lightning Thief was the first book in this young adult book series.
And I've also given a clue, you know, it's not Harry Potter.
That would have been my first guess. It's bold of you to assume I can read.
I'm going to go with Captain Underpants, the only young adult novel that needs to exist.
Sorry, young adult book series. Lightning what? The Lightning Thief was the first book in this young adult book series.
And Elisa has mentioned that it's Captain Underpants.
Do you agree or disagree? I would disagree. My son reads a lot, lots of Captain Underpants.
I haven't heard the Lightning Thief. Are you sure you're not just missing the first book?
Maybe, but I'll just disagree. All right.
Disagree is correct. I was looking for Percy Jackson. All right.
So I'll bring up the board. This is a very competitive game too. Zach, where are we playing next?
Zach's in a tough spot here.
I am just not caffeinated enough to have a good strategy, apparently.
It's the LaCroix. Yeah. I'm going with Leo. All right, Leo. Hopefully you can help us out with like the 4D tic-tac-toe that we're aiming for here.
Leo, your question. This Nickelodeon TV show debuted on September 8th, 2007, in which the main character creates their own web show.
Okay, I'm trying really hard not to say SpongeBob, but I think I'm going to have to go with iCarly.
All right, iCarly. I see Zach dancing.
I agree. And I believe there's a reboot coming up or did come up. The trailers look pretty sick.
It's actually an adult reboot. And so it's like, you know, they're all grown up and they curse them.
It's very strange to watch knowing the old version.
I was just not nodding the blog down. Wait, wait. So they took it dark and gritty?
I thought that was a millennial thing. Gen Z can't take that.
That's our thing. All right.
With that in mind, Anjana, the board is yours. You got two more spots. Where would you like to go?
I'll have to go with Saurav. All right, Saurav. Your game two question.
Jojo Siwa is an American dancer and singer who rose to notoriety on this video platform.
Which video platform? So Justin Bieber, I mean, he was found on YouTube, right?
I think I'm going to say the same thing and go with YouTube.
All right. YouTube. Do you agree or disagree? Oh, it was for me.
Yeah, I agree. All right. YouTube was correct. All right. So state of the board.
We have one more question and we'll wrap up game two. So with that, Zach, you got one choice remaining.
Who would you like to go with? I'm definitely going with Eric.
I think it's the best one. I agree. Good choice. Eric, how do you feel?
It's the last question of game two. I feel kind of nervous seeing that I was the last one to go.
So I'm ready. Let's get through it. All right.
I'm sure you were working on just the best joke then. Oh, yeah. The livery in my head.
I was like. Just the goat of trivia answers, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Can I use that phrase? Did I use it right? Awesome. Yes. I like to think of myself as cross generationally bad.
So we're on track. I believe the term is intergenerational.
Intergenerational. Okay. All right. Eric, your question to wrap up game two and the episode.
Mary Jane Peterson was the first African -American woman to graduate from this American college.
Which college? Is this a Gen Z question?
This is a college question. Okay. I think it was. I recently heard about this.
I think it was actually. Wait. No, I didn't. Okay. Wait. Maybe it was.
Overland. If you don't know who Mary Jane Peterson.
Oh, you're right. Oh, I'm so sorry. All right.
Do you agree or disagree? I agree with Eric. All right. Oberlin is correct. That was the first college to allow entry for the first African-American woman in America.
And so with that, we are at the end of our show. I'll do a quick show of the board.
We filled it up. Technically, the game goes to Zach as the first to five squares.
But the fun of this show is that no one's really keeping count or score. So with that, again, thank you everyone for joining us.
Hopefully you had a lot of fun with us and the interns here at Cloudflare.
Whether you're catching the live stream or catching one of the recordings.
I want to give a big shout out and thank you to all my squares.
To my two contestants, Zach and Anjana. If anyone has any pets or shout outs, now would be the time to show those off.
So round of applause to all my squares.
Thank you. Thank you so much, all of you. Super fun, you guys.
Thanks for having us. All right. Thank you. Bye.