Silicon Valley Squares

Hello, hello. Welcome everyone to yet another episode of Silicon Valley Squares. I'm your host from the West Coast, Dan Hollinger, and with me today is a special Silicon Valley Squares.

We're having a Mindflare brainstorming session. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and we want to celebrate that here at Cloudflare.

So I've got a handful of Cloudflare employees.

I got some friends of mine that have volunteered and we want to find out, you know, do Cloudflare employees know things?

What do they know? Let's find out. So if you've never caught this show, you know, I'm sorry, but the way it works is I have two contestants here, Becky and Brayden.

They're trying to make a tic-tac -toe by getting three across, three diagonally, or three down, and they get that by getting trivia questions answered by our guest Squares.

So with that, I will kick things off. And Becky, welcome to the Squares.

Oh, we got the mute. Every time. Hello. Awesome. What brings you here? And do you mind giving a quick introduction?

Yeah, my name is Becky. I live in Alameda, California, and which is very close to Dan.

And I'm his friend from Burning Man, which if I mean, you probably heard of it.

And I don't have a job, so why not play a game show?

Awesome. One of the best unemployment benefits, I would say. Yeah, definitely.

All right. And Brayden, welcome to the Squares. Would you mind giving a quick introduction?

Yeah, thanks for having me. Hi, everyone. I'm Brayden. I'm calling in from Denver, Colorado.

I first met Dan over 10 years ago in college.

And I've been a fan of Cloudflare since Dan started working there. So I'm excited to see what the company is all about.

Awesome. So with that, I will bring up the board.

And Becky, you get to start us off for game one. Oh, man. I will go ahead.

And I pick a square, right? Let's go with Carly. All right, Carly. Welcome back to the Squares.

Thanks. Happy to be here. Would you mind giving a quick introduction?

What are you doing today or lately here at Cloudflare? So I'm on the finance team.

I am our Chief of Staff for the CFO, Thomas Seifert. And I get to work on lots of special projects with all kinds of different people, some of which are on the call and some of which I just get to work with on random organization things like Amy.

Awesome. Well, your question to kick off game one, Americans check their phone this many times per day.

How many times do Americans check their phone? Well, I'm optimistic to say that I check my phone less than the average American.

Um, and maybe so I say I check it like twice an hour, which may be looking at pings and stuff, you know, give or take.

Um, I'm gonna guess like 50 ish for the average.

All right. 50 ish times. And Becky, you don't have to, you know, know the answer.

You just have to agree that 50 ish is the right answer or disagree to get the square.

And it was in a day, you said? In a day.

I'm gonna say that's wrong. I think it's way more. All right. Well, you are correct that it was the wrong answer, but it was about 46.

Oh, shit. 46 times per day survey released by Deloitte.

So with that, Becky gets Carly square and we're off to a great game one.

So let me bring that board back up and break and you can, you can select the next victim.

Great. I think I got to go with Amy and a center square.

Woo. All right. Amy center square, a Cloudflare squares, veteran. Welcome back.

Thank you. I love to be here. It's super fun. It's like the half hour of the week where I feel like I have friends during COVID.

All right. Would you mind giving a quick introduction to all of your friends?

I'm Amy. I work at Cloudflare and I am in Lafayette, California, and we're working in the office doing all kinds of stuff to get it ready for the humans to come back in, in yeah.

So happy to be part of Cloudflare and this, and, you know, shine a light on like the fact that we care about people's mental health at Cloudflare.

So thanks for all showing up today.

Awesome. Well, your question too, how much does the adult human brain way? I heard that it dries out as we get older, you know?

So like, like, I guess we got to take like an average.

You're taking the mental health to a dark place here. Let's see.

I know. I know. I think it weighs about three pounds. If I remember high school, college biology.

All right. Brayden, do you agree or disagree with three pounds?

I think that's going to be pretty close. I'm going to agree. All right.

It is three pounds. Brain weighs about three pounds, whether or not I can't speak to, you know, drying or withering or, you know, reduction over high heat.

But, you know, we, we have three pounds, the normal brain, the average.

All right. So here's the state of the board.

We've got a competitive game so far, Becky, where would you like to play?

I'm going to go with Andrew. All right, Andrew, another squares veteran.

I'm sure everyone knows who you are, but for those, those new viewers, would you mind giving a quick intro?

Not at all. Hello, everyone. I'm Andrew Fitch.

I'm based out of San Francisco, California, and I work on the people team.

I'm joining you though, from New Hampshire, actually. Speaking of mental health, I get to be around my family for the first time in ages.

I just went inside and hung out with my grandfather last night for the first time in well over a year.

So I'm excited to be here. And I'm excited to announce that to you too.

Nice harm reduction. All right. Your question. Neuroplasticity in the brain can be increased with a regular practice of this activity.

What activity? I know the answer, but I'm going to just sort of talk us through this.

All right. So here's how we arrived at this answer.

I like yoga a lot. Like I find that to be meditative, you know, to improve my brain function as well.

So I sort of thought it was maybe yoga.

And then I sort of started to, you know, to boil it down a little bit further.

And I started to think that maybe it was sleep because sometimes I fall asleep after yoga.

But then I was really thinking, maybe it's not the sleep part that we're talking about.

Maybe it's the meditation part of it. So I'm going to go with my final answer that it is meditation that helps in this way.

What do you think? Oh, man.

Messing with you or not? Oh, a little bit. I was thinking more along the lines of like puzzles, but I do like meditation.

I mean, as an answer, not personally.

I'll agree.

Let's go. Let's go with it. Let's do it. All right. Meditation is correct.

Yeah. Regular practice of meditation can increase the neuroplasticity in the brain.

Another thing that does that I learned is having children because your mind has to be all over the place.

All right. That's more a personal anecdote.

And with that, I'll bring up the board and Brayden, you get to guide us to the next square.

Yeah. I try to block. So I go Fallon. All right. Fallon for the block.

Another CFTV celebrity. Would you mind giving a quick intro?

Celebrity? Nah. But I'm Fallon Blossom. I'm the senior strategic programs manager, aka Cloudflare TV.

And yeah, I'm super happy to be here. Awesome. Your question.

There are four proposed attachment styles for relationships. There's the submissive avoidant, anxious, fearful avoidant, and this fourth attachment style.

What is the fourth attachment style? Well, for me personally, it's liar avoidant.

But let me, let me think on this a little bit. I'm like, oh, those are like Meg.

Who's like loving love? Hmm. I don't know. You're looking for the Velcro attachment style?

Right. Like super duper codependent maybe? No. How about alcohol avoidance?

Seems very specific.

So I have met many people in my life that were alcohol avoidance.

I'm going to have to disagree with the answer.

All right. Disagree is the correct choice. I was looking for secure.

So I was looking for the positive one. That you could have a secure attachment style.

What must that be like?

Anybody, anyone? All right.

I think that's when you make a, you know, secure TLS connection. I got to still get some nerd jokes in here from the earlier shows.

Yeah. And there's, you know, you hand over some keys.

It's a whole thing. All right. Here's the state of the board.

Becky, where would you like to play next? I mean, I got to go with Kevin.

All right. Kevin for the block. You're welcome to the squares. So my name is Kevin Claypack and I'm on the support team as a product specialist.

I've been a cloud for three years now or so, and I started the MindFlare ERG.

So it's one of the reasons why we're doing this today.

So was that a nature, you know, just a side effect of the work you were doing, supporting, you know, Cloudflare?

No, not exactly.

Although it does help to kind of just take some time and like do some meditation and stuff.

But yeah, I just know I just wanted to spread some more awareness within Cloudflare and just give some general resources to our employees.

So that's the main reason.

Awesome. Glad to have you here. Your question, aerobic exercise increases what in the human body?

We need like the Jeopardy music.

The first thing that came to mind was oxygen. And I might have to just go with oxygen.

Yeah. I like it. I'm here with it. All right.

So Becky, you agree with oxygen? Yeah. If I if if I get this question wrong, I I think my degree is revoked.

OK. All right. I was looking for heart rate. Now, you can definitely argue that once you're exercising, you're taking in deeper breaths and, you know, you have greater oxygen.

You're you're increasing the oxygen saturation in the blood.

Yeah. So I don't think you're wrong. I don't know. What are the squares think?

I don't want to get involved here. I don't want to revoke anyone's degree.

Damn, you got to do it. Don't put this on us. Well, I don't want to pick favorites quite yet, so I will give you oxygen and we can continue.

So you've got the block and we can continue with game was.

And I need to work on making more of my producer needs to work out more specific questions.

All right. Braden, here's the state of the board. Where would you like to play?

I think we go with the hilarious Zidoon. Oh, thank you very much. Oh, we've gotten a title.

Welcome back to Zidoon. That's glad to be back. Would you mind giving a quick introduction for all of your Cloud TV fans?

Sure. My name is Zidoon.

I'm a systems engineer on the caching team at Cloudflare. All right. Well, this is this question should be great for you.

True or false. We only use 10 percent of our brain.

I mean, I don't know, but I don't like to use my brain a lot.

So 10 percent seems like a lot. Let's stick with like 1 percent max. All right.

You're saying you're false. I disagree. Yes. Yeah, I think I agree with that.

I think, you know, 10 percent is just odds are it's got to be wrong.

All right. That is correct. That is a myth. We definitely use 100 percent of our brains.

That is there's no 10 percent kind of evolved involved. All right, Becky, the board is yours.

Would you like to play next? Got to go with Mariana.

All right. Mariana, welcome back. Thank you, Dan. This is my third SBS in a row.

So I guess I really like being here something. I'm on the place's team. I'm in San Francisco and I am excited to be supporting MindFlare and Mental Health Awareness Month.

Awesome. Glad to have you back. And then three in a row. That's that's basically a tic-tac-toe in and of itself.

All right. Your question. What is the strongest muscle in the human body?

I was just watching on the Fast and Furious spinoff the other day, Hobson Shaw.

So if you're Dwayne The Rock Johnson, the strongest muscle in your human body is probably your tricep or your bicep.

But what about the what about the eyebrow or the.

Thank you, Dan. Yes. Feeding the answers.

But I think most people are not Dwayne The Rock Johnson. So, I mean, it's Mental Health Awareness Month, right?

So I'm going to say the brain is the strongest muscle in the human body.

Is the brain a muscle? Yes, it is. I'm going to say.

Do we have any doctors? Amy is saying no. What looks like she already knows the answer.

I'm pretty sure the brain is not a muscle, but. Yeah, I'm going to disagree. All right.

Oh, the brain is not a muscle. The answer we were looking for was the heart.

The heart is one of the strongest muscles in the human body, and it just keeps going.

I'm going to run it over. It keeps going, you know, the heart will go on.

We'll be on Braden. Where would you like to play next? Oh, it's close. Will. I go, Will.

All right, Will. Will, welcome to the squares. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. I'm Will.

I'm on the legal team. I'm based in San Francisco. I really wish I had a background, but apparently I need to uninstall Zoom and then reinstall it.

Really worried I wouldn't be able to get on this show in time.

So I apologize to everybody.

And I also, my computer crashed in the middle of this too. So yeah, my first time on this show is going really well.

So I'm going to keep that going. So just double checking.

We can't get sued yet, right? We're good. You know what? Your legal perspective?

I guess we'll find out after the show. Okay. Stay tuned though.

We just patched the Zoom. May get sued. All right, Will, your question. What brain chemical is associated with pleasure and reward centers of the brain?

I think I know this one.

I'm pretty confident I know this one. I think when you eat chocolate, you get apparently from Willy Wonka, you get endorphins when you eat chocolate.

But I actually think, I think it's dopamine. You get like little dopamine hit every time you pick up your phone 40 something times a day.

46 apparently.

All right. Dopamine. Brain, do you agree or disagree? I was thinking oxytocin, but once you said dopamine, I think I'm going to agree with Will.

All right.

Dopamine is the correct answer. And we're basically at a tied game. So, Becky, would you like to close us out for game one?

Yeah. Go with Annika then, right? All right.

Annika, welcome back to Squares. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. So excited to be back.

I'm Annika. I'm a product manager at Cloudflare. So I manage Magic Transit and Magic WAN, which are two of Cloudflare's newer products.

Awesome. Glad to have you back.

Your question to wrap up game one. What spice is known to help with nausea and motion sickness?

Ooh, spicy question. Maybe sporty spice is probably a good answer.

I'm just kidding. What about, I don't know, maybe cinnamon. I'm going to lock it in.

Cinnamon. Cinnamon. Locked in. All right, Becky, close out game two.

What do you think? Got to disagree. I think it's ginger. All right.

Disagree is correct. It was ginger. Becky. Nice. All right. So by light of one, two, three, four, five Xs, Becky takes game one.

And with that, we highlight that game one was brought to you by Peace of Mind.

So if you'd like to learn more about using Cloudflare to protect and accelerate your websites, apps, and teams, you can do so without trade-offs.

You can use our content delivery network, and you can get sassy with our secure access service, Edge.

And with that, we hit game two.

Clear board. Brayden, you get to start us off. Where would you like to play first?

All right.

Had good luck in the center square, so I'm going to go with Amy again. All right.

Amy, your question to kick off game two. This is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress.

What is the name of that state?

Texas. Burn. That just came to me.

I think not unlike the name of my friends in high school, you would call that burnout.

All right.

Burnout. Brayden, do you agree or disagree? I'm going to trust Amy here. I'm going to agree.

All right. Burnout is correct. My friends were technically called burnouts, but you know.

It was all that stress. Yeah, exactly. All right. Becky, here's the state of the board.

Where would you like to play next? I am going to go with Andrew again.

All right. Andrew, your game two question. Let me pull it up.

Glad to be back with you, Becky. Yeah, same. True or false? Meditation can be as effective of a painkiller as morphine.

Okay. Let me explain my thought process with this question as well, if you don't mind.

It's my favorite part.

As a connoisseur of morphine, right? I am literally a connoisseur of morphine.

So here's the thing. I had a surgery when I was 17 years old, and they were still giving you morphine in the hospital then.

So I had a little clicky pen, like when I started to feel more pain, I could click for more morphine.

And my mother still tells the story that I looked at her with a crazed look in my eye and went.

Of course, nothing was coming out, but apparently I loved morphine when I was 17.

So it's so interesting that I got this question. I think based on the learning that I have done now, in large part to MindFlare, by the way, like to the meditation courses that they have brought to this company and the opportunities they're presenting us with during Mental Health Awareness Month, I am going to say that meditation does help just as much.

So I think it's true. I mean, I got to agree with that.

I like your confidence. I like your explanation. Let's go with it.

All right. That is correct. So meditation can be as effective with painkillers as morphine.

Good job, Becky. You too. All right. So then after surgeries, we just tell people to meditate.

No need for morphine. I don't think it works like that, but you can try.

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

I'll go with Annika just to make sure she's not last again.

All right. That's very kind of you.

Proper square distribution is very important on this show.

All right. Annika, your question for game two. What is the name for a sequence of yoga positions?

Oh, okay. This is a good one. So the first word that comes to mind is asana, but I think asana is just one pose, not a whole bunch of them all together.

So I'm going to go with a flow. A flow.

What do you think? I'm actually giving up my yoga night to be on this show right now.

I like what she was saying about asana, so I'm going to disagree. All right.

The correct answer I have is vinyasa. A series of forms. I typically call them a tumble or a struggle of yoga positions, but it's good that it has an official name.

A struggle. Sounds the way it's like. All right. So Braden takes the top square, and Becky, your move.

Where would you like to play next? Let's see. I will go with will.

All right. Will, your question, another true or false. True or false, damage to one side of the brain will affect the opposite side of the body.

That sounds right to me.

I always thought, you know, your left side of the brain controlled the right side of the body and vice versa.

So I'm going to go ahead and say that's true.

I wish, like Andrew, I had some anecdotal experience to draw this from, but I'm just guessing.

Some legal story about the left side and right side of the brain.

Not everybody can be Andrew. Yeah, no, I agree.

I don't really know. I've heard that to be true. But yeah, I got confidence in you.

Let's do it. All right. True is correct. So each hemisphere of the brain controls the opposite side of the body.

See, Will, just get more confidence in yourself.

Thank you. That's why I came to the show. Silicon Valley Squares.

We're a confidence builder. You know, you might get the trivia wrong, but we all have a good time.

All right, Brayden, where would you like to play next?

All right, got to go for the block, Mariana. Hello, hello. Hello, your question for game two.

Brain consists of three main parts, the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and this.

The cerebrum, the cerebellum.

Last time I had to think about this, I was in high school, because I picked a liberal arts college where I didn't have to take science or math classes.

So it's been a while. I am thinking about the brain and the parts of the brain that I know.

And there's something called a hypothalamus, which stores memory.

So I'm going to say the main parts of the brain are the cerebrum, cerebellum, and hypothalamus.

All right, hypothalamus, do you agree or disagree?

I haven't thought about the brain much more recently than that, but I think I got to disagree.

All right. It didn't trigger a memory in my hypothalamus.

I disagree is correct. I was looking for the brainstem.

I think the hypothalamus might be in the brainstem, but it's a separate portion or region.

All right, Becky, we're nearing the end of game two.

Where would you like to play next?

Got to go with Zaydoun. Love it. All right, Zaydoun, here's the question for the iPad.

Oh, great. I'll have to introduce secret squares or something. Yeah, once I get the production value up to where I can do the sound effects and the swoops.

All right, your question, what do antioxidants neutralize in the body? What do antioxidants?

Well, okay, based on my experience with antioxidants when I was 12 years old, I took an antioxidant and then my parents said, what did you take?

And I said, this antioxidant.

And then they told me, do you know what it does? And I said, no. So I'm going to have to say, I mean, it says antioxidants.

I'm going to say oxidants. I'm going to disagree.

I said, you can just agree with me. I could agree with you, but I don't.

I do think you're funny, though. I'd give you that iPad. All right, disagree is correct.

I was looking for free radicals. And with that, we're near the end of time.

So here's the state of the board. We have a very tied game. And thank you all for catching the live stream, or if you're catching a recording.

I hope you're having a great morning, evening, or afternoon.

Thank you for all my squares, all the veterans.

Brayden and Key, thank you for volunteering, giving a real good night.

So do I have to come back tomorrow night to finish this? You can go straight on.

This isn't done. I feel like we have to have you both back. I don't care what time it is on the East Coast.

We're going to finish this game. Only one person can remain standing at the end.

All right. Thank you all and have a wonderful time.

Thank you. Bye.