Peter Thiel Employee Helped Cambridge Analytica Before It Harvested Data<br />The three shared Google documents to brainstorm ideas about using big data to<br />create sophisticated behavioral profiles, a product code-named “Big Daddy.”<br />A former intern at SCL — Sophie Schmidt, the daughter of Eric Schmidt, then Google’s executive chairman — urged the<br />company to link up with Palantir, according to Mr. Wylie’s testimony and a June 2013 email viewed by The Times.<br />At the time, Mr. Wylie and the colleague worked for the British defense<br />and intelligence contractor SCL Group, which formed Cambridge Analytica with Mr. Mercer the next year.<br />Emails reviewed by The Times indicate that Mr. Nix<br />and Mr. Chmieliauskas sought to revive talks about a formal partnership through early 2014, but Palantir executives again declined.<br />Documents and interviews indicate that starting in 2013, Mr. Chmieliauskas began corresponding with Mr. Wylie and a colleague from his Gmail account.
