Silicon Valley Squares
Presented by: Dan Hollinger
Originally aired on December 15, 2023 @ 8:30 PM - 9:00 PM EST
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 Shows
Transcript (Beta)
Hello, hello, welcome everyone to yet another episode of Cloudflare TV. Welcome to another episode of Silicon Valley Squares.
We haven't got canceled yet. So the pain continues.
We'll fix that this week. Don't worry. Yeah, well, we're working on it.
So if you haven't joined us before. Thank you. If you're jumping on the live stream or catching a recording.
Good morning, good afternoon, or good night.
And if you haven't joined us before the rules are pretty simple. We have two contestants here, James and David, they're each trying to get a tacto either three across three down or three diagonally.
I'm your host from the West Coast Dan Hollinger, and I'm looking forward to getting started.
James, would you mind giving a quick introduction to our, to our fans and audience.
Hi, everybody. My name is James and I am gray clouded I left Cloudflare a little bit under a year ago as part of the customer success team and miss it every single day.
I just want to say thank you very much, Dan, for inviting me back.
I appreciate that. I mean, no promises that you'll win.
No worries. All right. And David, would you mind giving us an introduction.
Hi, I'm tubes. I'm the PM for networking availability for Cloudflare, and I am this excited to be here.
The jokes are supposed to come from the squares, David.
I'm doing extra duty I'm getting jokes from a different.
That's how that's my reach here. I mean, this is this is how we square.
This is how we scale, you know, ultimately, you know, one joke a day.
All right, James as as our guest. Here's the state of the board, where would you like to play first.
I rewatched war games with Matthew Broderick and I know the center square is where you have to start.
So I'll take it was mine. Who's mine.
I know you're already a Cloudflare TV celebrity, but would you mind giving a quick introduction.
I'm a smile. I leave the engineering team at Cloudflare. Nice to see everybody.
That was a sink. That was a subtle hint to all of the engineers on this to keep your jokes light.
It's the only one allowed to make fun of his mom today.
These people report to me, put it that way. All righty. Well, your question should be a nice softball where we're nearing birthday week on September 27 2010 Cloudflare launched at this tech event.
I'm going to go with TechCrunch. James, do you agree or disagree.
I remember the trophy and the by the by the reception desk.
So I agree that that's correct. Do they give trophies for second place because I thought we got second.
Did we get second? At TechCrunch Disrupt. You might remember the crunchy.
We did get a crunchy. I remember the office. The background of Silicon Valley, the TV show.
Because when they film that scene, we were still like Oh yeah.
We are on the background. I don't know if they asked for permission for that.
Can we can we see Anyway, I got it right. James got the square.
Here's the state of the board. David, where would you like to go next. Um, See, I'm gonna have to go with with Andre up in the top left.
Yeah, Andre. Andrew blues.
I don't know if you'd like to introduce yourself. That could be your alter ego.
Yeah. Hi. Hi, I'm, I'm Andrew. I'm, I'm on an engineering team, apparently.
Once a week. An engineering team or the engineering team. Who knows. There's W's everywhere.
All right, Andrew, your question in 1971 Ray Tomlinson sent the very first what 1971 so Man, so I want to make.
I can't figure out who would be the least sensitive square for me to make a born before after joke about I'm going to guess this was Three months before Zanoni turn 10 Yes, yes, that is a guess.
Yes. And I've kind of forgotten the question by now. Ray Tomlinson sent the first what I am going to go with email.
Email David agree or disagree.
Um, Look at this gray beard. You can trust it. I used to work on email. So as as part of working on email, you have to get a full history and I can confirm with with Andrew that I would agree with Andrews assessment.
All right, email is correct.
So David gets the square. All right.
Because I totally guessed. Do you got any sound effects. And you're back to Andre.
It's, it's fixed. I fired I fired my producer. We're good. Yeah, get rid of that Andrew kid.
Nobody likes that guy. All right, James board is yours. We're off to a good start.
Where would you like to play next Let's try Marshall. Marshall.
Good pick. Welcome to the squares. Again, would you mind introducing yourself.
Sure. Marshall Alexander. I am one of the very fortunate ones to work for respond.
He's a wonderful leader and we are all overjoyed to come into work every single day.
Nice. Going for it going for the bonus.
That was my life. Sorry. Alrighty Marshall, your question.
This happens to roughly 30,000 websites a day. What is this It's a bit unfair that I know this because it's a personal Hobby of mine.
I happen to know that 30,000 websites are actually created a that are fan sites for either Corey's or kittens.
Because it's been a big battle between the two and the aggregate sum total ends up being about 30,000 a day.
The exact balance, which is year to year.
kittens definitely had to leave for a long time, but the corgis have come up and are holding their own still haven't quite taken 50% yet, but we'll get there, we'll get there.
And one of them is better than the other.
And there's, there is a correct answer to which one is better. We barely survived the cat versus dog wars of like two episodes ago.
Let's not get let's not get too far into the weeds.
Still get I still get hate mail from that one.
Alright, James. Do you agree or disagree 30,000 websites are created for corgis Or kittens.
Or kittens. Okay, James. Before you answer this answer. His answer was way too technical and scientific.
I don't trust You're just bitter. Can I got to compliment on first Somebody in my extended family has a corgi and and they're obsessed with it.
And so I think it's it's highly probable that there are that that many sites, but I think still that maybe one or two too many.
And so I probably disagree in this case.
All right. Disagree is the correct choice about 30 ,000 sites a day or hacked Sorry tubes.
I tried. I mean, that was well well said it was well said Alright, so now here's the state of the board, David, where would you like to play next Um, I guess, I guess I have to do that.
I guess I have to cut off James here and I guess I'll have to go inside, dude.
I feel like, you know, like a last choice.
I don't like that. All right, I'm desperation only Doing the desperation pick.
Would you mind introducing yourself to all of your Cloudflare TV fans.
Nice. Hi, everyone. I'm a systems engineer on the caching team.
And no, I do not deal with money, unfortunately. Working on that. Although I am disappointed that you're not wearing a suit right now.
Everybody says that for more context to the audience.
I always wear a suit, even when I'm out shopping, which my parents think is weird.
I don't believe you anymore. That is very a suitless attire.
That is a suitless attire. Do you wear a suit when you're suit shopping.
Yes. All right.
Well, you have a very technical question in the history of Silicon Valley squares.
This will be the first picture question. So your picture. Is what is the name of this little meme.
Huh. Interesting. Okay, so Am I supposed to know this because I'm like young because I don't You're not selling it to me.
You're selling to the contestant.
Okay. Well, clearly, as you can tell, this is a very famous meme and it's the I don't even know what this character is.
Really selling it. But maybe I'm faking it.
You never know. I'm playing it cool. This is the angry brown object.
Nailed it.
It's the angry brown object.
All right. Angry brown object. Do you agree or disagree.
You made it so not convincing. That's the cool. He's just playing it cool.
I'm just playing it cool. I am going to Disagree with Zayden's assessment there.
All right. Disagree is correct. That little monster is called Domo or Domo -kun is the official mascot of Japan's public broadcasting network.
How am I supposed to know that.
Hey. Welcome to the squares. Do you even work on the Internet. I bet your software has cached that image a million times.
I bet your desk is full of nothing.
All right. David gets the square and we got a competitive board. James, where would you like to go next.
Well, I think I need to go with Robbie. All right, Robbie.
Would you mind giving a quick introduction. Sure. I'm Robbie. I'm here in Singapore on our core SRE engineering team and I work for actually Marshall and Osman, who are both fantastic, wonderful, kind, generous people.
New rule. No direct reporting lines allowed. And how's the weather in Singapore.
It's good. It's a little overcast this morning. We got the window, but it's good.
It's nice and warm. All right. Your question. Jack Dorsey sent the first what on the 21st of March 2006.
Dorsey sent the first what.
Hmm. I think, I think it was the first Internet ordered pizza. So he didn't request it.
He sent it. He sent it. I think he was the pizza delivery guy that delivered the first Internet ordered pizza.
It makes sense. It happened at South by Southwest.
That tracks. That would be Papa John's, maybe. What kind of pizza are we talking about?
South by Southwest. You don't have to provide detail.
I don't know if there was pineapple on it or not. If it's pineapple, I don't want that pizza.
All right, James, do you agree or disagree with the first delivered pizza?
I think he was a little bit busy doing something else and didn't have quite enough time.
So I think in this case, I have to disagree with that answer. All right.
Disagree is correct. It was the first tweet. He was quite busy tweeting away.
All right. Here's the state of the board. David, the choice is yours. Well, I suppose I have to block again.
I don't know. We've had strategic moves played here on the show.
I will go with Tom Lienza over there in the middle right. All right.
Tom, welcome to the squares. Would you mind giving a quick introduction? Sure.
I'm Tom. Also, I'm not allowed to say I work for Isfahan Mustafa, but I do. My claim to fame is, though, at one point I was the hiring manager for the one and only Andre.
Hey! Either one. Both? My main success is at Cloudflare. All right. Hey, I'm digging this downward reporting line complimenting, too.
This is great. Everyone's just so complimentary.
This is a good episode. This is engineering, man. We all just are huggy around here.
Yeah, until the blames come around. All right, Tom.
Tom, your question, true or false, the Space Jam website is still up and running.
You don't have time to look this up. Is that like the Michael Jordan movie? Can I ask questions, too?
There is no phone a friend here. Not who wants to be a millionaire.
I mean, we can't even get an iPad, let alone. I think I remember. I have to rent this suit.
Okay, let's be fair. It's kind of surprising that the movie predates the Internet.
It's surprising that there is a Space Jam website.
But the question is ridiculous enough that I will say, of course, yeah, why wouldn't it be online?
Sure. All right. True. Do you agree or disagree, David?
Someone who's been to the Space Jam website multiple times for me and purposes, I can confirm that it is in fact running.
And it is true. I agree. In all its 1996 gloriousness.
All right, that is correct. But now I need to understand why you've gone to the Space Jam website multiple times.
What's the latest? What are they?
Oh, it hasn't. But it doesn't change. It's coming out this summer. They're probably going to like update it for the sequel that comes out in a couple of months.
That would be sad. Sad, sad dandy. All right, James. State of the board.
Where would you like to play next? Why don't we try... Wendy.
All right, Wendy.
Welcome to the squares. Would you mind giving an introduction for all of your Cloudflare TV fans?
So I am the one that runs Usman who runs the engineering team.
So if we're talking to anyone, it should be Wendy. She's the actual center square.
And I also work with Jen Taylor, our head of product. Awesome.
Wendy, your question. What does SEO stand for? So in tech, we have a lot of different ways that we label our execs, directors, chiefs.
SEO is security engineering officer.
All right.
Security engineering officer. Agree or disagree? I don't think you have any marketers in the squares here, do you?
I'm not sure. But I bet you they would probably advise me to disagree with that one.
Is that your final answer? That's my final answer.
Let me think about it first. All right. Disagree or disagree? I have a great thinking about it song.
Come on and slam if you want to jam. Oh, we got the Space Jam reference.
It's topical. It is. All right, James, you get the square. David, where would you like to play?
We've got a busy game one. We really do. I'll go with Zanoni.
All right. Zanoni, welcome to the squares. Would you mind introducing yourself?
Sure. I work for Usman on Fridays at one o'clock during morning day. Only for like a 30 minute period.
No, I'm in IT. I'm the operations manager. If you have submitted an Ask IT ticket, that's the team that I help lead.
Make sure you guys got working equipment and your issues are all resolved.
Awesome. Well, welcome. Your question, which infamous Atari video game sold so badly that there are millions of game cartridges buried in New Mexico?
Wow. This is definitely a good one. I have another technically correct for you, Dan.
Zanoni, go ahead and knock yourself out. I have a technically correct for you.
All right. I remember the Atari. My father actually had one with all the great games.
And I would have to say if I had to choose one of those games, that probably didn't do really well.
It was Pitfall. Pitfall was, I loved it, but it didn't seem like a game that was going to really do well out there in the real world.
All right. Pitfall. Agree or disagree? So there's actually a really good documentary on Netflix about this game.
It was ET, so I'm going to have to go with disagree there.
All right. That is correct. It was ET. Did you hear about that on the Space Jam website?
It's bookmarked as my homepage. So whenever I open a new tab in Netscape Navigator, which is awesome, by the way.
You're not running Mosaic?
Come on. Exactly. I have a technically correct here for you.
They dug them up. They aren't buried anymore. It was past tense question.
It works. All right, James, do you want to wrap up the board? I think I'll have to choose my favorite SE, Jason Farber.
Oh, now the pressure's on. Jason, would you mind introducing yourself?
I'm Jason Farber, and I'm an SE. I'm a solutions engineer, and I really want to work for Usman one day.
Usman, you're great.
Looking forward to submitting my resume. Exactly. You're on. All righty. I think it's a dunce place tomorrow morning.
What? All right, Jason, your question.
What was the original name of ask.com? I should have asked a task control header or something question.
The original name of ask.com.
I'm going to go with askjeeves .com.
All right.
For the win, James, do you agree or disagree? Wow, that was a good answer.
I actually don't know. This is going to be a guess. I think I'm going to agree.
All right. It was askjeeves. All right, so James takes game one with five squares.
Essentially, the tiebreaker is first to five. That's just because he went first.
Hey, I don't make the rules. I just make them up. No one enforces them. That's all.
It was decided by a very fair eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Pretty much. Dude, you should be mad.
I'm hollering at your iPad if I don't win. That's okay, because in the next round, I'm going to win.
And I'll get the iPad. Break it out of the square and win it into the square.
All right. Game one was brought to you by the Cloudflare Partner Network.
Why? Because I'm on the partner team and I run this show.
So if you'd like to learn more about partnering with Cloudflare, feel free to check out portal.Cloudflarepartners.com to learn more about enablement and training material, co-marketing material, and joint account planning.
And with that, we move to a clear board.
It's game two. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone knows how this game works except me.
And we'll continue. David, you start us off. Where would you like to play?
I will start with Uzman in the center square. All right, Uzman. This way.
All right. Your question. What is the name of Cloudflare's effort to protect online targets such as artists, activists, journalists, and human rights groups for free?
Yes. We're very proud of Project Einstein, something we came up with specifically to protect all of our artists and political groups in honor of the late, great scientist, Project Einstein.
All right. David, what do you think? I'm going to have to disagree.
Careful now. Careful now. Do you really want to disagree with Uzman?
Yeah. He seems to know what he's talking about. He's in charge of a lot of things.
I don't report to Uzman. But I do. I do. And we have a connection through this iPad thing that we won.
That's exactly why you should agree with me when I say that I disagree with Uzman.
All right. David disagrees. That is the correct choice.
And I think this is the first instance of a center square trying to bluff.
So good on you, Uzman, in keeping the game going. Do you know the right answer?
It's Project Galileo. Oh, I got you there.
Project Galileo. All right, James, board is yours. And we were a good team last question.
So I'll start with Jason again. Let's do it. All right, Jason.
Bottom right square, your question. I've got to scroll down for it. We don't have cards.
I have another screen. Microsoft 3D Movie Maker first introduced this hilarious and oft maligned font.
Time for a song.
Oh, say can you see by the Jason's blank stare? I mean, I didn't even know Microsoft had that product.
I am going to go with. This is. God, I wish I can ask for a clue.
I can't remember the specific name of it. It's the one with all of the symbols.
Maybe someone can throw it out there for me. Hang on, hang on. Microsoft recently released a awesome new program where you fly planes around.
What do planes have?
Altimeters. Wingdings. I'm going to go with Wingdings. Final answer. All right, we've got squares helping squares.
What? That should be an invalid answer.
You can't just give him the answer. All right. I was just talking about Microsoft stuff.
Do you agree or disagree? A plane has a wingding? Is that a real thing?
Does it have like GPS and wheels and wings? On some websites they do.
Is a wingding like a chicken wing or something? Wingding is the name of this hilarious and often maligned font.
I don't actually know this, but that sounds pretty compelling.
I guess I'll agree. All right. It was actually Comic Sans. We got him. I didn't even know.
We did. All right, so David gets the square on the miss. And here is the state of the board.
So this could be a quick game too. Andre.
We did this. We made the magic happen last time. I got you. Andre, your question.
What does WWW stand for? World Wrestling Wowsers. And I know this because I was in New Orleans for a bachelor party specifically to go to WrestleMania.
I like to brag about hiring Andre. And every time Andre opens his mob Tom's eyes, I'm like, I like how Andre always has a backstory to his answers.
I like the backstory.
That's how you know they're true. I don't even know.
That's how you know my wingdings answer was definitely wrong. It was Sans correct.
Oh, all right. We do got the comedians here at Cloudflare today. I don't even know.
I don't even remember what his answer was. What did I say? Oh, World Wrestling Wowsers.
Yeah, that's the test. Can you ask them again? And if they get the same answer.
What time is it, Andre? Where are you at now? Don't worry about it.
That wasn't even because I didn't remember. I wanted to test him. I just did not remember.
I'm going to disagree with his assessment there. All right.
I think that's a fair disagreement. So, David gets the square. And game two. So, that was actually a shutout.
You're welcome. We got just three O's across the board.
Nice. Coming in in a clutch. David, one more game, and the iPad is mine. All right, and with that, game two was brought to you by Magic Transit.
Layer 3 DDoS protection.
When you don't want no scrub. Bing Centers. Is that a marketing-approved message?
None of these are marketing -approved messages. I have a distinct asterisk that says not marketing-approved.
I used to be on the marketing engineering team.
I approve. It's fine. You can get Rustin to add that to the deck. All right. And with that, we do not have time for a game three.
But if anyone would like to share their cat, dog, corgi, or kitten, now would be the time.
And thank you all for jumping in and watching Silicon Valley Squares.
And thank you all, my Squares, for attending.
I vote we should give a very screen-capable rendition of two's background.
Oh, we got a dog? This is how happy I am that I get to find Jason again. Thank you, Jason.
All right. Any other goodbyes for the crowd? I wish I knew Andre was going to have a Georgian cat.
That's a nice duck.
Oh, we got the little duck. Something I found out recently with this is that when you start using your hair, you can attach it to your forehead like this and it just kind of sticks.
Now you need to start the show like that next time.
Towel please, everyone. It's very late where he is. He needs to go to bed. James and David, thank you for jumping on.
And everyone, have a lovely good morning, good afternoon, or good night.
Thank you.