In this week's review of tech stocks, Amazon.com (AMZN 2.61%) and Apple (AAPL 0.96%) cozy up, Tesla (TSLA 2.07%) confirms it's developing artificial intelligence (AI) hardware chips, and Facebook (FB 2.38%) gets voted the best place to work.
Here's what investors should know.
Prime Video finally comes to Apple TV
Apple TV users will find just about every major streaming video service available in the Apple TV app store, including Netflix, Hulu, and Alphabet's YouTube. But one major streaming video platform has avoided launching an app for Apple TV... until now. Amazon finally launched its Prime Video app on the new Apple TV 4K, as well as on older generations of the set-top box.
Image source: Getty Images.
"There is nothing that excites us more than delighting our customers, and we are thrilled for them to stream Prime Video on Apple TV," said Amazon's VP of Prime Video, Mark Eamer.
The fact that it has taken this long for Prime Video to launch on Apple TV highlights the tension between the two companies. Other ways the companies have butted heads include Amazon delisting Apple TV from its online store, Apple Music not being available on the Amazon Echo family of smart speakers, and Apple's upcoming HomePod smart speaker reportedly not working with Amazon Music.
Tesla is working on an AI chip
It has long been rumored that Tesla could have its own chip-design projects in the works. After all, Tesla hired chip guru Jim Keller in January 2016 to lead its Autopilot hardware engineering team. Keller's resume includes leading the development of Apple's first A-series chips, including the A4 and A5, and more recently boasting the role of chief chip architect at Advanced Micro Devices.
After Keller, Tesla also picked up Keller's former colleague, Peter Bannon. Bannon similarly helped lead Apple's processor development, working at the tech giant until he was poached to work for Tesla in February of last year.
But there's no need to speculate any longer. Tesla is developing its own custom AI hardware for driverless cars. "I wanted to make it clear that Tesla is serious about AI, both on the software and hardware fronts," Musk said this week at the Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference (via The Register). "We are developing custom AI hardware chips." Led by chip-architect Jim Keller, Musk said he believes the AI hardware will be "the best in the world."
Facebook tops list of best places to work
Glassdoor, one of the world's largest and fastest-growing job sites, revealed its 2018 list of the top 20 places to work. Facebook notably topped the list for the third time in 10 years. Helping it top the list were its "stellar leadership, a top-notch culture and meaningful, exciting work," Glassdoor said.
Facebook's corporate culture has seen the spotlight recently, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg taking the entire month of December off for parental leave. Facebook offers employees up to four months of paid maternity and paternity leave. Glassdoor said other perks include free meals and snacks, a wellness allowance, a $4,000 stipend for new parents, and plenty more.
