Silicon Valley Squares

Hello, hello everyone. Welcome to yet another episode of Silicon Valley Squares. Thank you for joining us, whether you're catching the live stream or one of the recordings.

Hopefully, you're having a good morning, afternoon, or good evening. Today, we're having a sales operations takeover.

The sales ops team came to me and said, hey, we want to do some squares.

We want to do some trivia. We want to talk about some wine.

Their job is hard enough that they bring in the wine and we're going to have some questions about that.

If you're unfamiliar with the show, we basically play a game of tic-tac-toe where I have two contestants here, Annie and Bhavik.

They're trying to get either three across, three down, or three diagonally by asking trivia questions of our lovely panel of squares.

Again, made up of sales ops folks.

I assume I'm going to have to either make a JIRA or a Salesforce request to get anything done here, but we'll see.

We'll see how things go. All right. To kick things off, Annie, would you mind giving a quick introduction of yourself?

Sure.

I'm Annie, been with Cloudflare for three years. Within sales ops, I support solution engineers and take care of our customers.

Awesome. Glad to have you on the squares.

Bhavik, what about yourself? Yeah. I help run sales operations for the Americas.

I've been with Cloudflare for about a year now based out of the San Francisco office and looking forward to having a great show.

This is exciting stuff.

All right. We're going to have some internal team rivalry is what it looks like.

That's right. Sales versus post -sales. Let's do it. Whoever counts the revenue, that's who makes it count, right?

Well, our install base gets really big now.

All right.

Well, let me bring the board back up. Annie, you're the first to select.

Where would you like to play first? I guess I'll take central, so the niche.

All right. Manish, welcome to the squares. Would you mind giving a quick introduction for...

I know you probably already have an air of Cloudflare celebrity, but would you layer that up for us?

Of course. Yes. Hello, everybody. My name is Manish.

I've been with the company for almost seven years now and I lead the sales operations team and I'm based out of San Francisco.

Good to be here. Awesome. Yeah.

We'll look forward to all the back in my day stories. Those are some good stories if no one's heard them.

Yeah. Yeah. Fun story. I don't know if it is the time to tell the story right now, but I'd love to.

All right. We'll save it for after the wine.

All right. Sounds good. All right. Well, Manish, your question to kick off game one, what is a fortified wine?

Is it a wine with some kind of alcohol in it?

Maybe brandy? Is that your final answer?

Yes. Wine with other alcohol in it, like brandy. Annie, do you agree or disagree with that answer?

Well, I told all my friends here, I know nothing about wine, so we'll test a system of random selection.

So in this case, I will disagree. Oh, it was fortified wine is a wine that has brandy or another spirit added.

So Bhavik will actually get the center square.

All right. And I will go ahead and bring the screen back up with our amazing production values.

And Bhavik, here's the state of the board.

Where would you like to play? Let's go up to Ash over in the right corner.

All right. Ash, welcome to the squares. Thanks, Dan. Happy to be here.

If anything, I remember, didn't I beg for you to get on that first episode? You absolutely did.

And the second or third episode as well. 18 episodes later, here I am.

Persistence pays off. This is what I'm learning. I say, yeah, I'm glad to be here and excited to be here with the team.

All right. Would you mind giving a quick introduction?

Sure. Ash D'Souza, based in San Francisco, currently living in Ohio, and I handle partnership strategy and operations for Cloudflare.

And I've been with Cloudflare for nearing on two years now.

Awesome. Ohio, great state. I know.

I heard that a really famous game show host came from there. I mean, Dan Hollinger, our very own Dan Hollinger is from Ohio as well.

Yeah, I think we're straining the term famous and game show.

And host is correct. We got host. All right.

Ash, your question. How many grapes does it take to make a standard bottle of wine?

Oh, that's an easy one. Like, you know, like a lot of grapes, like, I don't know, like five, six times the size of the bottle.

And it's like compress that together.

And if I were to give a number, I would say like, you know, 200 grapes. A nice round number.

That's my final answer. 200 grapes. 200 grapes. Exactly 200 grapes.

If you put them together, you get a bottle of wine. Are we talking about big grapes, small grapes?

Or just medium sized, average sized. Yeah. Do you want to put that in pounds?

Oh, in pounds, I would say, you know, I know. Feels like an MBA case study question.

Like roughly two and a half pounds, just to be very precise. Like, you know, I feel two and a half pounds sounds like a reasonable amount of grapes for a bottle of wine.

All right, Bhavik, what do you think? Two and a half pounds for a bottle of wine.

I would say that sounds about right. All right. About right is what it is.

All right. So Bhavik takes another square. And we're off to a pretty one-sided game here.

Annie, we can see if you can work your way back and how this will go.

Well, then that left me with Khalid. All right, Khalid, welcome to the squares.

Would you mind giving a quick introduction? Sure. My name is Khalid and I'm Bhavik's colleague.

I run sales ops in EMEA. Awesome. Welcome. We got a cross -continental, you know, wine trivia extravaganza going on.

I did think we were dialing in to wine, but...

I just said I wouldn't supply it. You know, if you guys have it off camera, that's on you.

All right, Khalid, your question. What was Dom Perignon's occupation when he invented champagne?

That's easy. He was actually the world's first network engineer.

And he ran from the Battle of Marathon to Athens to deliver the world's first packet.

He invented the marathon as well that day, but yeah.

I like it. Marathon jokes. Marathon and network engineering. Yeah. It was an inefficient network, but it was a network.

I had to work a network joke in. Thanks, Ash.

Clearly, I'm the one who's not getting the joke. It was very funny. Again, still have no clue.

I mean, that's not my final answer. Yeah. What is your final answer?

But apparently, we're not allowed to do that either. So look, it's very obvious what he did.

He was obviously... He worked in a vineyard, and that's why he invented champagne.

It was kind of like penicillin. He was trying to invent something else and ended up with champagne.

I would agree. All right. Actually, no.

He was a monk. Oh, that's true. I heard of that story. All right. Monks could work in vineyards, but...

No, actually, I just knew that. Like a lot of monks actually have their own vineyard.

Oh, yeah. They were brewers. They were really bored.

So a lot of books and a lot of beer. So Bhavik, I can't give you the win since that's a game-winning tile, but here's the state of the board, and you're welcome to pick Khaled again or Khalid again, or we can go somewhere else if you'd like.

Let's change it up. We will go with... Let's go with Katrina. All right, Katrina.

Welcome to the squares. Hello there. Would you mind giving a quick intro to all your avid fans?

Yes, absolutely. So I'm Katrina Dinos, and I've been at Cloudflare for about a year, and I'm our program manager for our sales new hires.

Super exciting stuff.

And I'm located in San Francisco, and a fun fact about me is that I'm recognized as a top fan of Taylor Swift on Facebook.

So I'm really proud of that.

Nice. All right. We're gonna have to pull you back for the Taylor Swift trivia questions.

Okay. I think I might be able to do it. All right. Well, your question about wine is, what $2 bottle of wine put Trader Joe's on the map for affordable wine?

Oh, okay. I love Trader Joe's, and I love their wine. I'm trying to think. I want to say...

It has something to do with Shaw. I remember that. Charles Shaw, possibly.

That sounds right. What do we think? Charles Shaw. Bhavik, do you agree or disagree?

I think that's the right name. I mean, most people call it 2 Buck Chuck, but Charles Shaw is, I think, what they printed on the label, right?

So yeah, let's go with Charles Shaw.

All right. It was Charles Shaw, also famously known as 2 Buck Chuck.

So Bhavik... Bhavik, I clearly now understand that you do drink wine.

No, I go to Trader Joe's a lot. I don't. I just go to Trader Joe's all the time.

That's the difference. I go to Trader Joe's all the time as well. I don't go to the wine section.

The most interesting thing is he goes and picks up a $2 wine.

Exactly. No one wants the wine from my collection. It's about, hey, if the quantity is high enough, the quality doesn't matter.

Okay. All right, that's leading me to Carl.

All right, Carl. Welcome to The Squares. Where are you dialing in from?

Me or Carl?

Carl. Oh, Carl. Oh, sorry. Is it a producer in the background noise? Whatever.

Carl, welcome to The Squares. Would you mind giving a quick intro? Sure, yes.

I'm Carl Enrich, also in San Francisco, working with Katrina on sales enablement.

Awesome. Glad to have you here today. Your question, how much wine is in a standard bottle?

Okay, that is a good question. I'm going to go with 1,000 milliliter.

Well, that's a dumb way of putting it. 1,000 milliliter. One liter. I'll say one liter and leave it at that.

All right, standard bottle is a liter. Do you agree or disagree?

Wow, that sounds like such a simple question, and I don't know the answer.

Is there like phone a friend option, Dan?

There is not, but again, I can't mute you guys.

You guys, if you want to try to help the contestant out. You can also run to your kitchen.

No, no, no, no. I think I know that. It's about 900 milliliter to a 1.2.

So somewhere in that range. So I will disagree. It's in the 250 milliliter gaps.

So you pick a liter or 750 or 500 or 250. But the answer was one liter.

So anyway, it's a disagree. Yeah, so disagree is correct. A standard one is about 750 milliliters.

And so, yes, it goes up to the large bottles. They can get a liter or more.

So Annie joins the board at Carl's Square for one of the blocks.

I see some, you know, some 5D tic-tac-toe is going on. So Bhavik, the board is yours.

Where would you like to play next? Let's go with Kyle all the way down in the bottom right.

All right, Kyle, right? I want to make sure I get this right.

Yeah, a lot of key names on the board. All right, Kyle, welcome to the squares.

Would you mind giving a quick intro? Yeah, sure. Hi, everyone. My name is Kyle.

I work on partner operations and strategy based out of San Francisco. Fun fact about me is that I've lived in five states.

Which is rare for people from California.

Usually they live in just California. All right, well, Kyle, your question.

Which merchant is the largest retailer of wine in the United States? Oh, I know that.

Oh, I know that. It's multiple choice. Is it Walmart, Costco, or Trader Joe's?

I would think it's like wine .com, you know, like literally wine in the name.

Hmm, I feel like people want me to, to, to, Costco is like there's too much toilet paper going out of there.

So I'm going to go with Walmart. All right, Walmart, do you agree or disagree?

I would disagree. Costco is the one shop that sells a lot of chickens and a lot of wine.

So Costco it is. All right. It is Costco. So Bhavik takes game one.

And let me bring the up the state of the board. All right, so everyone have a good game one.

Everyone gets, gets, gets how this, this flow works.

Yeah, we having a good time. Anyone drinking wine yet? And I think you want Bhavik on your team if you're, if you've got a trivia night.

Yeah, that's, that's what I'm, that's what I'm saying.

I feel that's why Bhavik wasn't available for the last three days.

Like he just blocked his calendar. Alrighty.

Well, game one was brought to you by the sales ops team. We have open roles globally.

If you'd like to check out those roles, feel free to go to Cloudflare .com slash careers.

So we have roles for sales ops, sales ops, business partners in APAC and EMEA.

Come join Cloudflare. And you can also be on Silicon Valley squares. All right.

Off the game too. We've got a fresh board. Bhavik, you can kick us off. Where would you like to play next?

Let's kick it off with, let's kick it off with Manish again.

All right, Manish. How's that center square feeling? You, you good? You're muted.

I'm unmuted now. All righty. Your question. Oh, this one's not even like this one feels unfair.

What is the biggest kind of wine bottle? So is it the bottle you can pick and drink or could be any?

I would assume it's too big for that. How about a keg?

I think that's called a keg. Keg, yeah, that's my answer.

All right, Manish and Keg. Bhavik, do you agree or disagree?

I would disagree. That's, I don't think that would be considered a bottle.

All right. The largest, the biggest kind of wine bottle is called a Nebuchadnezzar.

Apparently holds 15 liters of wine, which is equivalent to 20 bottles of wine.

So you can drink it. Also known as a typical, just a typical night out. All right.

Bhavik takes center square and we're off to the races for game two. Let me bring up the board.

And Annie, it's all yours. Where would you like to play next? I will go with Jake.

All right, Jake, welcome to the squares. Where are you dialing in from?

I'm in San Francisco. And my role on the team is working with the sales technology and tools for the team.

Awesome. Glad to have you on the squares. Your question, what is novenophobia?

Novenophobia is the fear of being exposed for not actually knowing anything about wine.

Pretty good.

But actually novenophobia is the fear of running out of wine and being left with no vino.

I will agree.

All right, that is correct. That is what novenophobia is. I'm curious if it's actually like a medical diagnosis or if this was just made up by like scared alcoholics.

It could be made up by me. That is correct. My producer did not check the validity of any of these questions.

So we're going off faith in the sales opportunity.

Hermitdictionary.com has it. So it's real. All right, here's the state of the board.

Bhavik, where would you like to play next? Let's get Michael Poussaint involved.

All right, Michael, would you mind giving a quick introduction? Dan, thanks for having me.

I'm on the sales ops team. I manage the, I guess, enterprise contracts process based out of San Francisco.

Awesome. Glad to have you and glad to have you counting all the enterprise money.

That helps fund the production value here at Silicon Valley Squares.

That's what makes you a celebrity, right?

Of course. And he appreciates it as well. I do. I do. All right, Michael, your question.

What is the helix part of a corkscrew called? I didn't even know how to name.

You know, people don't think about the important things. It's how to open the bottle.

Some may call it a gatekeeper. But I think the answer to this one is the worm.

The worm. You know, Michael drinks a lot of wine. I think he also reads into some interesting facts.

So I'll agree with him. All right. It is the worm.

Oh, no way. Yeah, I always thought it was just a corkscrew. I didn't think it, you know, he needed to bring metaphors into that.

But you drink enough wine, you start writing poetry.

All right, let me bring the board back up and we can continue along with game two.

All right, that leaves me with Shahil.

All right, good. All right, Shahil, welcome to the squares.

Would you mind giving a quick intro? Sure, thanks for having me. So I'm Shahil.

I administer Cloudflare's enterprise sales systems. So Salesforce and other relevant tools.

And I've been with Cloudflare for about three years now, almost.

Awesome. So you put the force in Salesforce. A little bit. Yeah. All right. And that's trademarked, you know, if you ever use that again.

I'll take a note of that.

All right. True or false. Red wine is made from red grapes only. And white wine is made from white grapes only.

Do they have white grapes? I thought it was green grapes, right?

They only had like red grapes and green grapes, right? White and green are interchangeable in this context.

In that case, I would say false. It is false for sure.

They're also black grapes. All right. It is false. So red wine gets its color because the grape skins are left to ferment with the juice.

White wine is mainly from the grapes, which are green or yellow in color.

But there is some white wine also made with grapes with red or colored skin.

All right.

Wow, that's a lot of details. And yeah, sometimes there's, you know, background in detail.

We try to teach on this show, you know, while we're in it. It's educational, right?

It's not just entertainment. Yeah. I never knew about the Nebuchadnezzar, but now I want it on my Christmas list.

You know, here we are. It's going to help the people with the nobino phobia, right?

All right. Here's the state of the board.

Where would you like to play next, Bhavik? Let's go with, let's go with Ash.

All right, Ash. Your question, true or false? A winemaker's handling of tannins to produce fine quality wine is a matter of science-driven precision.

It feels like a loaded question. Yeah, that's a really good question.

I mean, if you think about it. Did you write that question, Ash? That sounds like an engineering question.

And like, you know, as an engineer, as well as a connoisseur of wine, I mean, I think that it really has got to be true.

I mean, like wine, clearly something that takes a lot of time, effort and study and skill.

So yes, I would tend to agree with that. I think I would disagree. I think wine is more of an art than a science.

Would you say sales office is more of a science or more of an art, then?

Sales office is definitely more of an art. All righty, well, false is correct.

So the disagreement is correct. Apparently, there's little scientific understanding of the tannin process.

So winemakers typically rely on experience and intuition.

And that's why wine is so expensive.

All right. The last part was added by me. That's not part of the trivia question.

All right, let me bring up the board.

And we're nearing the end of game two. Aine, where would you like to play next?

Well, that brings me to Kyle. All right, Kyle, your game two question.

Scroll over. I don't have the note cards. I have the laptop.

Which are the basic sequential steps of wine tasting? Do you assess the cork, swirl, and taste?

Do you look, smell, and taste? Or do you swirl, taste, and spit?

Wow. I want to say swirl, taste, and spit, right?

That makes sense. But factually, I think it's look, smell, and taste.

May I ask for a repeat of the question? Which are the basic steps of wine tasting?

And the three options given were cork, swirl, and taste, look, smell, and taste, or swirl, taste, spit.

And so the answer given by Kyle was look, smell, taste.

Basic sequential steps, right?

So this is not like you like swirl. I feel like swirl is not a sequential step.

So I'm going to say look, smell, and taste. I saw you swirl, look, smell, taste, and spit.

So five steps. Well, I'm only giving three options. Three steps, OK.

Oh, we're just looking at the basic process. Yeah, there might be some artistic license to this.

So this sounds like it's more focused on the basic process.

Then I will agree with the look, smell, and what is that?

Look, smell, and taste, right?

Look, smell, and taste. All right, that is correct. Annie gets the square. That's very different than my process, which is like open, chug, cry.

I don't know if anyone else uses that process for their wine tasting or their wine experience, but.

It depends on who's buying the wine. All right, Bhavik, the board is yours as we near end game two.

All right, let's try to wrap this up with Khalid.

All right, Khalid, your game two question. Who is the legendary winemaker who helped bring California wine to world acclaim and died at age 94 in 2008?

Shirley Temple.

I thought she was going for a different drink.

We're talking about alcohol, so it makes it all interchangeable.

I don't know.

Did anyone make... Can I go with the Shaw guy again? Charles Shaw. That guy gets around.

If you want. Legendary $2. Is this the guy that like Bobble Shock was written about?

Yeah, so I'll go with Robert Mondavi. Robert Mondavi.

I would. Oh, all right. Bhavik agrees it was Robert Mondavi. All right, so very close game two.

It looks like Bhavik eked it out with that kind of diagonal from left to right.

So Bhavik took both games. And before we wrap up the show, game two was brought to us by the Cloudflare Partner Network.

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

So if you'd like to learn more about becoming a partner around our enablement material, co-marketing material, or joint planning, check out portal.Cloudflarepartners.com and become a partner today.

All right, and with that, we're at the end of our show. That was, you know, thank you, SalesOps team for joining us today.

Hopefully you guys had a lot of fun.

Thanks a lot. It was great. It was great. Thanks for hosting. All right. Thank you all that are joining us via the live stream or recording.

I'm your host, Dan Hollinger, and I wish you a good morning, afternoon, or evening.

Everyone have a wonderful time.

Thanks a lot, Dan. All right. Thanks, Dan. See you guys. Thanks, Dan.

Bye.