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