Hello, and welcome to this week's edition of the Insider Tech newsletter, where we break down the biggest news in tech, including:
I'm Insider Tech Features Editor Alexei Oreskovic, and I'm always eager to hear your thoughts, feedback and tips, so hit me up at [email protected].
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This week: Elon Musk dreams of electric robots
Never underestimate Elon Musk's indefatigable desire to make people go 'WTF?!' During Tesla's "AI day" event this week, the electric carmaker's CEO stunned the audience by unveiling something that looks very different than a car: a humanoid robot.
- The "Tesla Bot" stands nearly 6 feet tall and will relieve humans of performing "boring," repetitive physical tasks like lifting and carrying stuff, Musk said.
- What do robots have to do with cars? The robots will use the same AI and sensors technology that Tesla cars use for their autonomous driving features. Yes, that's the same autonomous driving technology that federal highway regulators began investigating days earlier, in the wake of 11 crashes (one of them fatal), and which two US Senators want the FTC to probe.
- Chutzpah points: If Tesla doesn't build this robot, Musk said, "someone else will, and so I guess we should make it and make sure it's safe."
Musk says a prototype will be coming soon, but for now the Tesla Bot is just a pretty picture on a screen. That said, the technology for robots is evolving in amazing ways:
- Here are 5 ways machines can now mimic the human senses.
- And don't miss Boston Dynamics' latest video of its Atlas robot's new skill: parkour.
Amazon's slack problem
Mike Blake/Reuters
Less than two months into his tenure as Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy has his first case of employee unrest to deal with. As Eugene Kim exclusively reports, hundreds of Amazon employees have created an internal slack channel to openly criticize and vent about the company's opaque performance review system.
The channel is called "I got pipped," in reference to Amazon's brutal performance-improvement plan that's known for ending more careers at the company than it improves.
Read the full story here:
Hundreds of Amazon employees join an internal Slack channel to criticize its opaque performance-review system
And check out some of Insider's other reporting on Amazon's internal culture:
Lists-o-mania:
Here at Insider we love to find out who the key players are within various companies and industries, and to track the team rosters and all the big hires and departures. Here's a couple of our latest lists of people worth watching:
50 behind-the-scenes investors in the venture capital world that control billions of dollars
62 power players at Travis Kalanick's secretive food startup, plus 26 who left in the last two years
Quote of the week:
Kimberly White/Getty Images for Robinhood
"Customers that have been participating in these IPOs have been relatively diamond-handed, so to speak."
- Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, speaking on the company's first earnings call since going public, busts out a bit of meme-stock lingo. To have "diamond hands" - as anyone in Reddit's Wall Street Bets community will tell you - means to hold on to a stock or cryptocurrency when the price is falling. It's the opposite of "paper hands."
Recommended readings:
Not necessarily in tech:
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- Alexei
