10 things in tech you need to know today, October 4

A
biotech company raised $25 million to do psychedelic
research.
Peter
Dejong/AP

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this
Thursday.

1. 
   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.
2. 
   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.
3. 
   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.”
4. 
   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.
5. 
   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.
6. 
   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.
7. 
   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.
8. 
   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. 
9. 
   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.
10. 
    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.