💡 RTO mood lighting

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👋 Happy Friday. Take care of yourself this weekend — especially you, Gen Z. Young adults under 35 are increasingly taking their health into their own hands: 45% of those ages 18-34 say they’ve ignored a health provider’s advice to listen to a friend or family member in the last year, and 38% say they’ve done the same in favor of advice they found on social media, according to an Edelman survey. Don’t believe everything you see on TikTok, kids.

🎧 On the pod: How Dr Pepper parent company Keurig is crushing the soda market while rivals flounder.

NEWS FLASH

The silhouette of a man holding a phone in front of the YouTube

🎂 You forgot someone’s birthday… YouTube turned 20 on Wednesday. The platform celebrated the anniversary of its first video ever shared — a 19-second clip of co-founder Jawed Karim, titled “Me at the Zoo.” From a grainy home video to the world’s most popular video streaming platform, YouTube has seen 20B+ uploaded videos to date. On average, the platform sees 20m+ videos uploaded every day. In 2024, users averaged 100m+ video comments and 3.5B likes per day. And it’s far from done: YouTube announced several upcoming feature rollouts, including voice-replies to comments and updated TV viewing experiences.

🚗 Volkswagen of America and Uber are launching a robotaxi service using VW ID Buzz microbuses. The service will launch in Los Angeles in late 2026 using human safety drivers before going autonomous in 2027. The plan is to expand to other US cities through the next decade, though none have been announced. You can already take a driverless Waymo in parts of Los Angeles, and Uber recently launched its service with Waymo in Austin, Texas, with Atlanta coming this summer.

📱 Google Fi is debuting Unlimited Essentials, a new $35/month phone plan that features unlimited talk, text, and data, plus 30GB of high-speed data. Fi’s other plans will get high-speed data boosts — for example, its $65/month Unlimited Premium plan will hop from 50GB to 100GB — meaning users can access more high-speed data before experiencing slowdowns. Other upgrades include the ability to add eSIM devices to plans and expanded international 5G coverage.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

Did you watch Conclave this week? The film saw a 283% spike in viewership on Amazon Prime Video, according to data and analytics firm Luminate. The film amassed 1.8m minutes of viewing on April 20, and saw 6.9m minutes by April 21 following the death of Pope Francis.
“You can’t lick a badger twice.” What, your mom never taught you that one? Users are asking Google’s AI Overview to explain fake idioms as if they’re real — and it’s delivering — proving yet again that AI hallucinations are alive and well.
Merry Christmas? Hasbro estimates it could lose up to $300m due to the Trump admin’s 145% tariff on imports from China, which could potentially result in layoffs. This predominantly affects the company’s toy business, as many of its games are produced domestically.

VALUATIONS GO VROOM

THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION TECH by the HUSTLE.

50 companies changing how we move

Sadly, not in the physical activity sense — today we’re talking transit, traffic, EVs, autonomous vehicles, and obviously flying taxis, too.

See the Transportation Tech Tracker for a dive into our highly efficient future. We examined powerhouses like Tesla, BYD, Uber, Waymo, and, fittingly, way mo’ businesses.

Covered in the database:

Valuations + funding data
Short-form summaries + key offerings
Key metrics + market insights
Founders + recent headlines

The global transportation industry is expected to hit $11T+ by 2030. These are the innovative businesses leading the way.

The future of mobility

THE BIG IDEA

An interior view of an empty office space filled with rows of grey cubicles. Overhead fluorescent lights illuminate the scene.

You light up my office

Working remotely generally leads to happier, more productive employees.

But companies aren’t paying for office space for nothing, so return-to-office mandates are the new norm.

But it doesn’t have to be miserable

Some companies are trying to make their offices less inhospitable with more pleasant lighting, per The Wall Street Journal.

Searing yellow fluorescents are out, replaced by adjustable LED bulbs that can offer different color temperatures and intensities.
Which is great, as cooler colors are better for concentration.

No natural light? No problem. Bay Area-based Innerscene offers fake skylights and windows that can sample the color of the sky and adjust accordingly.

That’s almost as good as not being at work!

It’s not just windows

Some offices are holding events and readjusting layouts to give workers more flexibility — but is that what they want?

One survey found that only 37% of workers would happily return for better amenities, while 65% said that a raise would get them to embrace RTO — which is exactly what celebrity video-messaging service Cameo is doing.

In February, Cameo offered $10k raises to employees willing to return to its Chicago office 4x a week.
Every eligible employee took the deal (there were only 26, but still).

So if your boss is pushing for RTO, tell them you want either $10k… or better lighting.

🔗

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Number of scored multiple-choice questions on California’s February 2025 bar exam that were created by a psychometrician with AI assistance.

The State Bar of California disclosed this fact on Monday, following numerous complaints from applicants who experienced technical issues. Some couldn’t log in; others experienced crashing platforms, error messages, and significant lags. That alone prompted a lawsuit, but this latest admission has stirred outrage in the legal community.

“Having the questions drafted by non-lawyers using artificial intelligence is just unbelievable,” Mary Basick, assistant dean of academic skills at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, told The Los Angeles Times.

Well, yeah, when you put it like that.

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: In 1901, New York became the first US state to require license plates. Unlike today, the state did not issue them but had owners make them.

📣 How to: boost your “vocal presence.”

👀 That’s cool: Slo-mo people watching. This is an excerpt from James Nares’ “Street,” on view at MoMA in 2013.

❌ Game: Tic-tac-toe, but the moves begin disappearing.

🐹 Aww: Mom-to-be.

QUOTE OF NOTE

Losers of the bird flu outbreak: consumers, dairy farmers, grocers, millions of chickens (RIP).

Winners: vegan egg producers, like Eat Just, whose CEO, Josh Tetrick, called the disease-born chicken egg shortage a boon for the plant-based sector, per the Financial Times.

And fair enough — sales of the company’s mung bean-based egg substitute, Just Egg, are reportedly 5x higher this year compared to last, and overall plant-based egg sales are expected to double this year, from $40m-$50m in 2023, amid heightened demand.

SHOWER THOUGHT

There is nothing in the universe that is agreed upon by everyone. SOURCE

Today’s email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman, with help from Sam Barsanti, Singdhi Sokpo, and Kaylee Jenzen.
Editing by: Ben “Will RTO for a galaxy lamp” Berkley.

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