🗿 Japan Adopts 4-Day Workweek

Some hot takes to take to the water cooler

December 10, 2024

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GM. Happy Tuesday. 

Today we’re back with another edition of bar bites. We’ll give you the hot topics and ammo you need at Thanksgiving to start a fight or quickly pivot out of a political conversation you don’t need to be in. 

Without Further Ado. ☕ *knuckle cracks* ☕ Let’s get into it.

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Bar Bites 

OpenAI Launches Sora

Tl;dr

  • OpenAI officially launched Sora, the company’s AI video generation model, now available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers

  • Sora can create up to 20-second outputs

  • OpenAI is restricting content with real people, minors, or copyrighted material

Our take

A lot could be argued about specific features or omissions, but what is important to understand is that OpenAI’s reach is currently unmatched. Millions of users will just be finding out about generative video with this launch, so it is significant. 

Looks pretty cool too.  

Tokyo government to introduce four-day workweek for its employees

Tl:dr

  • The Tokyo government plans to introduce a four-day workweek for its employees in an attempt to support young families and boost record-low fertility rates nationwide

  • Japan's birthrate hit a record low in 2023 with only 759k births. Japan’s fertility rate is now 1.2, far below the fertility rate of 2.1 that is needed for a stable population

Our take

Japan has an overworking problem, that’s for sure. But we’re not convinced that this is going to change the culture overnight. The article also states that “employees of the metropolitan government will have the option to take three days off each week”. Sounds like employees might technically have the option to take time off, but end up feeling too ashamed to really do it. 

Having said that, we’re big supporters of the 4-day workweek in general. Heck, you can get to 36 hours pretty easily in 3 days, 40 hours in 4 days should be easy.

Here are the top trending searches of 2024, according to Google

Tl:dr

  • Across the globe, “U.S. Election” was the top trending news search

  • “Olympics chocolate muffins” was the top trending food and drink recipe globally after Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen went viral for showcasing his love for them

  • “Inside Out 2” was the top trending movie of the year

  • Olympics ranked #9, behind 5 other sporting events

Our take

Nothing really exciting here. Inside out 2 was fine. We had an election, we know. No one cares about these muffins. And the Olympics are slowly dying. 

Maybe humanity isn’t as toast as the .001% of the twitter extremist takes we read. Maybe we’re just addicted to the takes because most people are boring. 

One cool feature to check out is the local search.

Microsoft shareholders vote ‘no’ on Bitcoin reserve

Tl;dr

  • Microsoft shareholders voted against a resolution to add Bitcoin to the company’s balance sheets during the firm’s annual meeting on Dec. 10. 

  • The company’s board opposed the resolution, citing Bitcoin’s purported volatility as a negative factor.

Our Take

Pretty cool to see one of the largest companies in the world talk about a FOMO trade like it’s the degen group chat. Maybe you guys should’ve done this 2 or 4 or 8 years ago. I’m sure there’s an internal memo from a dev at Microsoft with a 2014 date on it talking about this. That guy is taking a victory lap today. 

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