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Here's everything you need to know today - in under 3 minutes.

Today's big stories

📺 Foxtel enters the 21st century

🚗 Mercedes Benz reveals new electrified lineup

📈 PayPal's looking at a stock-trading platform

Oh, and get this...

Scotland is set to trial a four day working week. And the best part is, their salaries won't take a hit because of it. Parts of New Zealand, Iceland and Japan have all taken the plunge and reported pretty great results. You're up, ScoMo.

Foxtel has launched a new set top box, which they reckon is "the ultimate streaming machine"

Background: Foxtel is the big Pay TV company that launched 25 years ago. It was sorta like the Netflix before Netflix, but if Netflix only played The Simpsons or Friends reruns. It's majority-owned by News Corp.

What happened: Unlike Netflix, Stan and co, Foxtel needs cables, satellites and a couple years to get installed. But that's all changing with Foxtel's new iQ5. The first set top box that doesn't require a satellite dish or cable installation.

What else: Foxtel's is using the first principles approach to reinvent its declining business through its investments in Kayo, Binge and now iQ5.

So what's the key learning?

💡Sometimes, when a business is bleeding cash, losing customers and losing its brand, it needs to start again from scratch to re-invent themselves. 

💡The first principles thinking is an approach used by tonnes of inventors - all the way from Aristotle through to Elon Musk. It's basically boiling a process down to the fundamentals...and building it back up from there.  

💡Foxtel knows it's good at delivering entertaining content. But the way it delivers that content (i.e. through satellite and cables at $60 a month) ain't working for customers anymore. So they're still doing what they do best - entertainment - but through in new ways.

Mercedes Benz reveals new electrified lineup

Background: Mercedes Benz - aka the German luxury car maker - has just revealed a whole lineup of cars with one big thing in common - they're all electrified. 

What happened: The new electric version is all part of Mercedes Benz's plan to go fully electric by 2022.  

What else: The global electric vehicle market is expected to grow to a massive US$1.2 trillion by 2027 so Mercedes is getting in early.

So what's the key learning?

💡As demand for electric cars surges, established car manufacturers are thinking about how to deliver the same level of luxury and class, but in a sustainable way.

💡We've seen Lamborghini, Hummer, Rolls Royce, McLaren and now Mercedes Benz completely rewrite their business models to meet emissions targets and stick to new government regulations.

💡The UK, Sweden, India, Israel and Germany have all announced plans to ban the sale of internal combustion engine cars by 2030. Which means luxury car makers are racing to replace their gasoline and diesel models with batteries.

PayPal signals it may launch a stock-trading platform for US customers

Background: PayPal is the US$340 billion payments company known for helping buyers make safe, secure payments on the internet. And for remembering my details so I don't need to find my credit card every time I want to make a purchase (you da real MVP, PayPal).

What happened: Now, PayPal is apparently exploring a possible stock-trading platform for US customers. Rumour has it the company recently recruited a US brokerage industry expert, who updated his LinkedIn status to say he was CEO of Invest at PayPal. Sus much?!

What else: This isn't super surprising. PayPal rolled out the ability to trade crypto last year, and it brought in a buy now, pay later option. So, it's always at the forefront of new tech in the payments space. And it could signal fun things ahead for Oz.

So what's the key learning?

💡 Trading platforms are the new black, Flux fam.

💡The retail trading space is seeing a tonne of activity. First-time traders in Australia alone hit a massive 435,000 last year, taking the number of online active investors to a record high of 1.25 million. 

💡The movement started overseas thanks to a not-so-little platform called Robinhood, who pretty much started a trading revolution. Now we have eToro, Sharesies, Superhero and way more. So although PayPal's platform would be entering a pretty crowded space, with 400 million customers, the odds are in their favour.