Peter Dejong/AP
A biotech company raised $25 million to do psychedelic research.
Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Thursday.
- Business Insider has released its ranking of the 100 coolest people in UK tech. Whistleblower Christopher Wylie, who revealed how Facebook data had been manipulated by Cambridge Analytica, has topped the list.
- Facebook is now making users wait twice as long to delete their accounts. When a user tries to delete their account, Facebook makes them wait for a month-long "grace period" before it is actually deleted.
- The president of "World of Warcraft" creator Blizzard has stepped down, and his replacement says Blizzard is working on several new games. Blizzard co-founder and longtime president Mike Morhaime stepped down on Wednesday, and will be replaced by twelve-year Blizzard vet J. Allen Brack, who was the executive producer on "World of Warcraft."
- Elon Musk reportedly threatened to resign if Tesla caved to the SEC. Elon Musk initially threatened to resign if Tesla's board accepted a settlement offered by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Times reported.
- Some Tesla board members reportedly want James Murdoch to take over as chairman. The 21st Century Fox CEO previously came under fire ahead of his re-election to Tesla's board in May due to a lack of relevant experience.
- Ebay has accused Amazon of trying to poach sellers from its platform. Amazon employees used Ebay's internal messaging system to recruit individuals that sell goods on Ebay and tried to lure them to Amazon's platform, eBay alleged.
- Amazon is reportedly testing a new feature to convince shoppers to buy its own brands. Amazon appears to be tinkering with how search pages on Amazon.com highlight the brands it owns, testing a feature that encourages shoppers to check out items from these private labels by adding a link under search results, CNBC reports.
- A new biotech company has raised $25 million to help unleash a "virgin market" of psychedelic research. Called Atai Life Sciences, the company owns a large stake in a company called Compass Pathways, which is backed by Peter Thiel.
- Two public tech companies are about to merge, creating a $5.2 billion data processing giant - and their stock prices are soaring as high as 15%. Cloudera and Hortonworks are merging, with Cloudera's CEO in charge of the combined entity, and Cloudera shareholders holding a 60% stake.
- Tim Cook took a subtle swipe at Google over how Apple does business in China. The Apple CEO said in an interview with Vice that Apple views data privacy as a human right, and encrypts data the same way in China as it does in every other country.
Have an Amazon Alexa device? Now you can hear 10 Things in Tech each morning. Just search for "Business Insider" in your Alexa's flash briefing settings.