Silicon Valley Squares
Presented by: Dan Hollinger
Originally aired on June 6, 2023 @ 8:30 PM - 9:00 PM 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
Transcript (Beta)
Welcome to Silicon Valley Squares on Cloudflare TV.
Hello, hello, everyone.
Welcome to yet another episode of Silicon Valley Squares. They can't cancel me because we're on Cloudflare TV.
I am ecstatic to be joined by the marketing and sales teams.
We're going to have a blast. And if you're unfamiliar with the show, first of all, thank you for jumping in, whether you're catching us live or catching one of the recordings.
We're glad to have you here. Silicon Valley Squares is a simple game of tic-tac-toe.
I have two contestants here, Cy and Jason, and we will be asking some amazing trivia questions of some Cloudflare employees and seeing what they know.
Maybe they don't know anything. Maybe they know a lot.
We'll discover in these next 30 minutes. So with that, each of each of them is trying to get either three across, three diagonally or three sideways.
And to jump into it, I'm your host, Dan Hollinger. I'm dialing in from the Bavarian coast and look forward to taking this board on a ride.
You guys ready?
Let's do it. All right. Well, to kick things off, Cy, would you mind giving me a quick introduction?
Sure. I'm Cy Chavely. I'm based out in New York City in the product marketing team, looking after application security products.
Awesome. Happy to have you on the squares.
Let's get back to the board and you can take your first square for the game.
I'll go to the middle square.
The middle square. All right, Mark. Is that Mark? Yeah.
Welcome to the squares. A quick introduction for those that may not know of your genius.
A genius. I left a long time ago. I'm Mark Boroditsky. I am the president of revenue at Cloudflare and have the great privilege to be joining you all today.
Awesome. And how long have you been with Cloudflare? I think we're coming up on 100.
And I guess I shouldn't use days over 100. We're just over three and a half months, four months.
You make it sound like you're counting on like the prison wall.
Like I lost track. I can't put the I can't add up the five anymore. We have a newborn.
Yeah. Well, Mark, great to have you on the squares and at Cloudflare.
Your question to kick off game one about what percentage of the Internet runs on Cloudflare today.
Well, I only use the part that runs on Cloudflare. So from my perspective, it's all of the Internet.
But I believe the actual number is 20 percent of the Internet.
I think I have to agree with that. I think I learned that quite recently in my onboarding.
So it was 17 or 20 percent. One of the two. All right.
20 percent is correct. So with that, we got our first on the board. All right.
Here's the state of the board. Jason, welcome back to the squares. Would you mind giving a quick introduction?
Of course. Thanks for having me, Dan. My name is Jason.
I live in San Francisco Bay Area. And I wear a bunch of hats here on the marketing team, one of which is helping out with popular TV.
And I am thrilled to be back here on Silicon Valley squares.
Awesome. Jason, where would you like to pick for the second square of the game?
Well, you know, that center square was mighty appealing, but I'll go with Brent because of the rest of the squares.
His square is the one that stands out most.
So he also happens to run the marketing team.
All right. Brent, welcome to the squares. Would you mind giving a quick introduction?
Sure. Yeah. Brent Rainey and chief marketing officer here. And I am about five months in.
So super excited to be here. Great place and excited to join all my fellow contestants.
Awesome. Great to have you here. Your question, a bit of Internet history.
What was the first item sold on eBay in 1995? All right.
Well, yeah, no, I know that one pretty well, I think. So unbeknownst to a lot of people, Peter Omnibar was a big farmer.
And so he's just down the down the road.
He has a lot of different animals. So he wanted to make a big punch into the into the industry.
So he sold one of his baby lambs. Yeah. Amazing. He was going to use his art of arts, but he went with the baby lamb.
And then that worked out well and put eBay on the map.
So that is the first item ever sold on eBay. And everybody followed like sheep, right?
They would have. They would have. But they had a bad connection.
It just didn't work. Oh, wow. I'm worried at least. But, you know, this is a tough one because it sounds so ridiculous.
But it might be one of those crazy things that's actually true.
Like I would think it's against eBay policies to sell living things on eBay.
But first version, version two or three, you know, they got there eventually.
And also there's a little risk about not agreeing with Brent here.
So I got to roll the dice either way. And I'm going to I'm going to err on the side of let's agree.
Let's find out. All right. Agree is incorrect. The first item sold was a broken laser pointer.
Why would someone buy that? That is surprising.
So so apparently eBay was first called the auction web in 19 in 1995 in September.
The first item listed was a broken laser pointer that sold for about 14 dollars to someone who claimed to be a collector of broken laser pointers.
So there's always a buyer somewhere.
One man's treasure. Wow. The more you know. All right.
So here is the state of the. So where would you like to pick next? Well, let's let's keep the game going.
So I won't go for John Doe. Let's go with Zidoon.
Is that it? Did I get your name right? Yes. OK. And it's an excellent choice.
All right. Zidoon, Squares alumni, Squares experts. How have you been? Good, Dan.
Thanks for having me again. So my name is Zidoon and I am a systems engineer on the cash team.
So I'm a bit I don't fit with the rest of everyone here. I was just brought on here to complete the square.
It wouldn't be complete without you. Yeah. I mean, sometimes we all have to check a box.
It's OK. That's all right. Your question.
This form of social engineering with a recreational name arrives via email and instant messenger.
That's a good question. I should know this because I like to go fishing.
It is fishing. Yes, it's fishing. So I do agree or disagree. I don't know much about one type of fishing, but I should know more about the other type of fishing because I came from a company that made its money in fishing.
You can kind of guess it was in cybersecurity, so you can figure out which kind of fishing it was.
So it is. I will agree. All right. Fishing is correct. All right.
State of the board is not looking good. All X's. What's going on? There's a possibility.
That's all I need. So this is the beginning of your comeback. This is step one.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Eunice, let's let's go with you. Come on. We got this.
All right. Eunice, welcome to the squares. Would you mind giving a quick introduction?
Eunice Childs. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I'm on the brand team as a design manager.
April 1st will be my full year. All right. Great to have you on the squares.
Your question, Qwerty and Dvorak are types of what? Well, I know the answer very well as someone who's been to Iceland.
There are two types of waterfalls.
So Qwerty is the ones that run into the river and Dvorak is the ones that run into the ocean.
That is a really convincing answer. And if I didn't know this, like the back of my hand, thanks in part to Dvorak on typing, which I don't even really know what that was, but 20 years ago it was floating around.
And in Qwerty is what I go with.
So I know it's a keyboard layout. And so I'm going to have to disagree.
But a good a good answer. I don't know. I was sold. I mean, I've been to Iceland.
I think I've seen some Dvorak waterfalls. They were gorgeous. All right.
Here is the state of the board. It is your turn. Where are we playing next?
Sure.
Let's keep the game going. Let's go with Sandra. All right, Sandra, where are you dialing in from?
Hi, everyone. I'm Sandra Padilla. I'm here based in Austin, Texas, and I'm in the marketing team.
I'm the marketing manager in the marketing team.
Awesome. Glad to have you on the squares. Your question. What was the name of the first laptop sold from IBM?
Oh, OK. This is interesting because I come from a company where I used to market laptops.
But it was an IBM. So let me think. So. I'm going to say it was something like maybe a portable.
Maybe convertible. I'll go with that one.
What do you think? All right. Do you agree or disagree? I'm literally picking with whichever way the wind is blowing right now.
It's it's quite going quite northward.
So I will disagree. I have no idea, though. All right. The answer was convertible.
So apparently let's pull up the fun facts that my producer put together for me.
The convertible was a primitive laptop. They used a whole bunch of side cars at the back of the unit for expansion.
It was about suitcase shaped and had a PC XT motherboard and an ugly amber display.
I didn't put in the descriptor there, but it was an old laptop.
And it was called the convertible.
Now, I will remember. Yep. All right. Jason, that comeback is starting to form up here.
Look at that. Well, let's go. Let's go. I think John Doe is sort of the randomizer.
So we'll find out what that leads to. But let's go with the bottom right corner, please.
All right. John Doe is unfortunately out sick today.
So, Mark, if you wouldn't mind standing in for their trivia question. Happy to.
All right. I feel a great privilege to be John Doe. We're all John Doe sometime.
Your question is a completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart is better known as this.
It is the Chinese wall test.
Hmm. It seems maybe in the right ballpark. I was going to go catch cat.
So I'm going to disagree on this one. But how did how did you pronounce that?
Apps. Now I'm very self conscious. Are you supposed to stay at couch.
I think I was read like the T is silent, but. All right. Let's move on. Let's move on.
So I'm going to disagree. On a Deborah keyboard it's capital. All right.
So that brings us to the end of game one. And here come back. State of the board.
Jason took game one, three circles along the bottom. And as always, game one was brought to us by the Cloudflare partner network.
Why? Because I'm the product manager for the partner product and this is my show.
So I get to advertise what I want to learn more about becoming a partner of Cloudflare at portal dot Cloudflare partners dot com.
And with that, we're off to game to Jason, you get to kick us off.
Where are we starting? Let's start with Jim, please. All right, Jim, welcome to squares.
Would you mind giving a quick introduction. Absolutely, Dan.
And thanks for selecting me because I was starting to fall asleep. Jim Wilson, enterprise account executive in New Jersey.
Some welcome to the squares and representative from New Jersey.
I don't think we've had a Jersey dial in. Your question.
Jim Wilson. Which 1982 science fiction adventure movie was not nominated for the best visual effects category because it used a computer for its visuals.
1982. Wow. Probably wasn't a Tom Cruise movie because they didn't use too many visual effects and is at least not risky business.
I'm going to go with Blade Runner.
Blade Runner.
Jason, do you agree or disagree? You know, so the thing that came to my mind was Tron was.
But I really it's a toss up. So they use computers. I'm going to agree.
Let's go agree. All right. You got me having to, like, undo my copy and paste of the square here.
So Tron was correct. Your intuition was there. So in 1982, it did not win best visual effects because it used computers.
I thought it was cheating at the time.
Can't do visual effects without computers these days. Yeah.
Yeah. All right.
Here's the state of the board side. Where would you like to play next? Let's go with Peter.
All right, Peter. Welcome back to the squares. Nice to be here again, Dan.
My name is Peter and I'm a solutions engineer with our sales team and I help our customers validate the cloud for product.
And again, how do you have the time to be here again?
All right.
That answer that answer helps for itself. And that and I don't know. So for the folks that are new here, that joke has never gotten old for me.
Continue to use it.
We all wonder what you're doing in the rest of the time when you're not doing trying to raise my daughters.
Let's see, Peter, your question before earning the name of Mario.
What was this Nintendo character originally called? Who is a good one.
So it was Jumpman. But however, you know, it's a me. Jumpman didn't quite have the same flair to it.
All right. I'll give an extra square to anyone that can do that in the right accent.
It's me, Jumpman. That was good, Jason.
I didn't know of a Mario before Mario. So I'll agree with that.
All right, Jumpman is correct. That was the original name of Mario. Opportunity missed for sure there.
Do they actually have it in the game in one of his original entrance and like Donkey Kong.
He was known as Jumpman. All right, here's the state of the board, Jason, where we plan next.
Let's go with Mr.
Rubin. I think we've talked to him yet. All right. Welcome to the squares. Thank you.
I'm very happy to be here. I may be whispering a little bit as my son is, I think, on the verge of sleep on the other side of this wall.
I'm coming to you from Lisbon, which is why the light is so bad.
And this is the best light there is. This is the kitchen blazing bright.
Yes. Happy to be here. Thanks, Sam. This is fun.
Lovely to see all of you. Awesome. And what team are you a part of here at Cleveland?
The research team. Research team. Awesome. Well, hopefully you can help win the game.
You can help go to bed. You and I both can just go to bed and then the North Americans can take take over.
All right. Your question. MMORPG was coined in 1997.
What does MMORPG stand for? Well, it's. Maybe some of you recall this and it comes from another era.
But before there were these things that were online, there were these tables of people who looked at each other.
And when they got excited, spittle, you know, spewed forth from their lips and they maybe banged the table.
And sometimes even a little figurines that they'd very carefully painted fell over.
So it's from that sort of era. And it's. Yeah. So that's the idea anyway.
But it's a massively meaningful online role playing game.
And so the massively meaningful is. And again, some of you might remember predates any of this Wayne's World stuff.
It's, you know, massive. It was quite meaningful at the time.
Massively meaningful. That is fascinating and so close to true.
Alas, it's not because MMORPG stands for massively multiplayer online RPG.
And I know this because the game I think is referencing 1997 may have been Ultima Online, which I happen to have played back in the day.
It was a master blacksmith and the tailor.
So shout out to any of my people out there. I didn't have a lot going on back then.
So anyway, I'm going to disagree. And let's see what happens.
All right. Disagree is correct. Although I'm sure the games were very meaningful for many of people.
We are looking for for multiplayer. So Jason is correct.
So let's bring up the state of the board. And pick next. But those figuring games that you were referring to, Stefan, I think those are also multiplayer.
It was just multiplayer and in a non online world. That was really good.
Okay, let's see. We've gone through everybody. So let's go back to try and get the game.
Brent. All right, let's do it. Let's do it. Your question for game two. Who funded the original ARPANET network?
Ouch. Okay, that is a tough one. Well, let me see.
Somebody that has a ton of money has to be behind it. I'm quite certain of that.
I mean, all paths generally lead to this person. They're an icon. Of course, I'm talking about Kim Kardashian.
Funded the ARPANET. Oh, wait, wait, I got my questions.
Okay, maybe not Kim this time. We're overhearing at a bank. I was at a bank many, many years ago.
And there was some funding discussion going on and who was in that bank was the US Department of Defense.
So the Department of Defense funded the original ARPANET, not Kim Kardashian, as most think.
A sentence you never thought you would hear.
But here on the Silicon Valley squares. I honestly thought that Kim Kardashian had more liquid cash than the Department of Defense, which is like got its tentacles everywhere and did have the tentacles in the original Internet before we all started using it.
So I will agree. Right. Agree is correct.
The Department of Defense helped fund the original ARPANET. Here we are.
We got a two way win potential for Si. Jason, which one are you blocking first?
Uh, Eunice. All right, Eunice, your question.
On what day did Cloudflare TV launch? I do vaguely remember from my orientation, it was a very, very cloudy and foggy day in August.
I don't know the exact date, but, um, well, that's kind of fitting for with a logo and all that.
You know, a good guess. I think it was a little bit before that. It was actually in June.
So I'm going to have to disagree. I wasn't there, so I kind of stuck with it.
This was like the worst question to give to you. There's no guesswork to this question.
Not a lot. Not a lot. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, it was June 8th.
I should just hand you the square. All right. Well, Jason, did you remember the date?
And do you remember the time it was pushed live? I definitely remember the date.
I remember the time. The first few minutes were a little bumpy. So sort of what the first time would be is a little debatable.
But, uh, yeah, I definitely remember June 8th.
Would you say it was cloudy? I was locked in my bedroom. I wasn't seeing the sunlight for several days before and after that.
And we played, you know, streaming killed the video star, right?
We took some inspiration from our old friends at music television.
I'll say that. All right, let me bring up the board and we're in the last few minutes, so we have time for maybe two more questions.
Sai, where would you like to play next?
Okay, let's, let's go with Zidun then. Let's try and win this.
All right, Zidun for the win. No, no pressure, Zaidun. Okay, I accept iPads if you want to win.
Oh yeah, I remember when we were trying to get you an iPad for winning.
I've been asking for one. Zaidun, who in this list did not drop out of college?
Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, or Elon Musk?
Interesting.
Let's see. I'm pretty sure Mark dropped out of university or college because he, he said so.
I'm going to go, that's my dog trying to tell me which answer to choose.
I'm going to guess it's Elon. Okay, I actually don't know the answer to too much in this context so I will disagree.
Elon Musk doesn't seem like he would love going to college too much.
But that's a cute dog.
Hopefully that dog was saying something opposite to what you were saying Zaidun, and I was right.
My dog said Elon. All right, the dog was right. Elon Musk was the one that did not drop out of college.
So here we are with the State of the Board and we have time for one last question.
Jason, where are we playing? Well, I know there's an obvious, actually a couple obvious choices here, but I'm going to go with Sandra.
All right, finishing up with Sandra. Here's the last question of the game.
Oh, that this was the most self-referential question. Sandra, which classic game show debuted on October 17th, 1966 with Peter Marshall as host?
Okay, so I wasn't even born in 1966, and I wasn't even, I didn't grow up here in the States.
So this is going to take me some guessing. So since the name of the show is Silicon Valley Squares, I would say it has something to do with squares.
And Silicon Valley, I'm guessing, if it's not Silicon Valley, it probably is Los Angeles, San Francisco Square.
What about that? San Francisco Square, that's the name of the show.
That's my answer. I want to say if you've never heard of the show, of the original game show, you came pretty close just then.
You know, Los Angeles Square, this is right up, right.
I mean, assuming Dan, Dan may be throwing us off here with the self-referential reference.
But I'm going to say I think it was probably Hollywood Squares.
And so probably not San Francisco Square. So I'm going to disagree.
All right. Disagree is correct. We are looking for Hollywood Squares. Hollywood Squares was the final addition to a short-lived game show powerhouse block on NBC, which for two years had the games Concentration, Jeopardy, You Don't Say, Let's Make a Deal, The Match Game, and a few others.
So with that, I want to thank All My Squares.
We had an amazing show tonight. Did everyone have fun? Yeah. Awesome.
Yeah. All right. Tell your friends I do birthdays, bar mitzvahs, and at least one funeral.
So everyone else, thank you for jumping in and catching us either live or on one of the recordings.
Feel free to check out more Cloudflare TV. Thanks, Dan.
Bye. Thanks, everyone.