Editors' pick: Originally published Feb. 13.

In the past, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has referred to Facebook (FB) - Get Report as a media company, rather than a social media company.

On the surface, it would appear that he is wrong. Facebook connects billions of people through its network, sharing stories, tagging photos and liking statuses. As time goes on and users dig a little deeper though, it appears -- of course -- that Mr. Zuckerberg is correct.

Or at least, he will be correct.

Some investors had feared that Facebook would one day end up like Myspace. A broken down, mostly forgotten social media site that died out after users found other platforms more appealing.

That's why Facebook has made such an effort to move into other realms, such as live-streaming video. It's why the company is making a push into video content and now, music.

It's interesting how quickly Facebook has grown and as a result, who it now has to face in different arenas. For example, its goes against Twitter (TWTR) - Get Report when it comes to online news and has Snapchat going head-to-head with its Instagram unit.

For music and music videos, an overwhelming amount of people flock to Alphabet's YouTube platform. So for Facebook, there's obviously big competition. But by sheer volume -- Facebook has over 1 billion active users -- it could certainly make a dent and take market share.

Especially when you think of social sharing. When a user sees a music video they like on YouTube, they share it on Facebook. But what if the source of the video is on Facebook?

While it's unclear what Facebook's role will be going forward, it undoubtedly could spur millions -- and possibly billions -- of dollar in new sales for the music industry.

Shares of Facebook closed at $134.05 Monday, down 0.1%.

Facebook and Alphabet (see following items) are holdings in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells FB or GOOGL? Learn more now.



The automotive and technological worlds are in a self-driving race, as both look to get fully autonomous vehicles on the road within the next five years.

Ford (F) - Get Report was the latest company to up the stakes, when it agreed to invest $1 billion in Argo AI over the next five years. In the deal, Ford became the company's majority shareholder and together the two will look to have a fully autonomous vehicle on the road by 2021.

This isn't the first move in self-driving vehicles for Ford. However, rather than keeping everything in Michigan, the automaker has also gone to the Golden State. In 2016, it opened up the Ford Smart Mobility center in Silicon Valley.

For its part, Argo is based in Pittsburgh, but also has offices near San Francisco as well as Michigan.

By the way, how old is Argo AI? Pretty young. Reportedly, the company is just a few weeks old, with CEO Bryan Salesky out of Alphabet's (GOOGL) - Get Report self-driving car team and COO Peter Rander from Uber's self-driving unit.

This is Ford's largest self-driving investment to date.

Shares of Ford closed at $12.56 Monday, up 0.4%.

Sticking with self-driving car theme, there's some new drama going on with Alphabet's unit.

Recently spun out from under the experiments umbrella, the unit now known as Waymo has experienced a series of unfortunately events. And it didn't unfold in a way management could have predicted.

According to reports, Waymo has seen a number of employees leave because they were paid too much.

Yes, you read that right.

The company adopted a compensation package that doled out plenty of cash to its employees, especially when key milestones were hit. As the years went by and the bank accounts continued to grow, it seems a number of employees felt comfortable enough turning off the spigot and going separate ways.

With self-driving technology closer to the road then ever and with more and more competition getting involved, this was undoubtedly a bad time for Waymo to go through such an event.

The reported "F-you money" paid some team members multi-million payouts. So once these employees had reaped enough reward, they must have figured it was no longer worth working.

It's hard to argue with that logic, although it's left Waymo a bit off-balanced.

Shares of Alphabet closed at $838.96 Monday, up 0.5%.

This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.