Pavel Durov's application. Biography of Pavel Durov - the founder of the social network Vkontakte and the Telegram messenger. Pavel Durov's current state

Pavel Valerievich Durov (born October 10, 1984, Leningrad, USSR) is a Russian entrepreneur, programmer, ruble billionaire, one of the founders of the VKontakte social network and the company of the same name; creator of the cross-platform messenger "Telegram". Former CEO of VKontakte (2006-2014). In his student years, he was a laureate of scholarships from the President of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation, a three-time winner of the Potanin scholarship.

In 2001 he graduated with honors from the Academic Gymnasium, in 2006 - the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University with a degree in English Philology and Translation with honors (which he still has not taken). A year earlier, he completed professional training at the Faculty of Military Education of St. Petersburg State University with a specialization in Propaganda and Psychological Warfare, after which he received the rank of reserve lieutenant. Immediately after graduation, he created VKontakte, the largest social network in Russia at the moment. In 2011, Durov, with a fortune of 7.9 billion rubles, ranked 350th in the ranking of Russian billionaires.

Pavel is a vegetarian and adheres to libertarian political views. Durov is called the Russian Mark Zuckerberg, and is also often criticized for his eccentric antics and statements. On November 19, 2012, Nikolai Kononov's book "Durov's Code" was published, describing the formation of VKontakte and its creator; AR Films has already acquired the rights to adapt it.

In 2014, he left Russia and said that he was not going to return.

In 2016 and 2017 included in the Forbes list of the 200 richest businessmen in Russia

Family

Father - Doctor of Philology Valery Semyonovich Durov (born 1945), author of many scientific works, since 1992 he has been the head of the Department of Classical Philology of the Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg State University.

Mother - Albina Alexandrovna Durova.

Brother - Nikolai (born 1980), mathematician, candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, multiple winner of Russian and international olympiads in mathematics and computer science, twice absolute world champion in programming among students, from the day of foundation and until mid-2013 he was the technical director of VKontakte ".

Half-brother - Mikhail Petrov, son of Albina Durova from his first marriage.

Pavel's grandfather, Semyon Petrovich Tulyakov (born 1913), participated in the Great Patriotic War. He served in the 65th Infantry Regiment, participated in the battles on the Leningrad Front in the Krasnoborsk and Gatchina directions, was wounded three times. He was presented to the Order of the Red Star, was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree, and on the 40th anniversary of the Victory, the Order of the Patriotic War, I degree. After the war he was repressed.

Biography

Pavel Durov was born in Leningrad on October 10, 1984 in an intelligent family. He went to the first grade of the school, being in Turin, where his father worked for several years. Returning to his hometown, Pavel did not study for long at a regular school and entered the experimental classes of the Academic Gymnasium (now the Mednikov Academic Classes), which provides in-depth study of all subjects, including four foreign languages. There he had a reputation as an erudite and sat at the first desk due to vision problems.

At the age of 11, he first became interested in programming. His trick is known when he changed the screensaver of all school computers to a photo of a computer science teacher with the caption “Must die” (Russian Must die). Durov was deprived of access to computers, but he cracked passwords to them. In 2001, he graduated from the Academic Gymnasium with honors. In 2002, Pavel entered the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University with a degree in English Philology and Translation. For his academic achievements and contribution to the student life of the university, he was awarded the scholarship of the Government of the Russian Federation, and then the scholarship of the President of the Russian Federation.

In general, Pavel Durov is distinguished by a passion for languages: “Learn foreign languages. This will unrealistically expand the depth of perception of the world and open up unprecedented prospects for learning, development and career growth, ”he once gave such advice to readers on his Vkontakte page. It also lists the languages ​​that Pavel Durov speaks: in addition to English, French, German, Spanish and Italian, he knows Latin and Persian.

Pavel became the winner of the Potanin scholarship three times, and was also one of the selected number of students of St. Petersburg State University with the highest level of intelligence and leadership abilities. He won Olympiads in computer science, linguistics and design, organized university-wide events. Pavel graduated from the university in 2006 with a red diploma (which he never took). A year earlier, he completed professional training at the Faculty of Military Education of St. Petersburg State University with a specialization in Propaganda and Psychological Warfare. During his studies at this faculty, Pavel served as a platoon commander of the Faculty of Philology, and upon graduation he received the rank of reserve lieutenant.

When I looked at people who commute every day for routine work in offices, I did not imagine such a scenario in my life. The management of Internet projects, the organization of university events taught me independence and the idea that I do not have direct superiors.

Pavel Durov

Even during his studies at St Petersburg University, Pavel created non-commercial Internet projects designed to improve the quality of the public and scientific life of the university. These projects were Durov.com and Spbgu.ru. The first project is an electronic library of university abstracts, as well as a place for the exchange of ideas and opinions of students; the second is the university forum, where Pavel often initiated various discussions in which, using different accounts, he argued with himself.

But by the summer of 2006, he realized that his student sites, for all their popularity, were ineffective in uniting students, as many hid their names under nicknames, and real faces under avatars: students could communicate with each other on the network without even suspecting that study in the same group. Then he started looking for another form for the student site. Later, Pavel's old friend, who returned from the United States after studying, introduced him to an Internet project for American university students - Facebook, where users posted their real names and photos in profiles. Durov decided to introduce a similar website concept in Russia, that is, real people under real names.

The original name of the future project - "Student.ru" - was replaced by Pavel with "VKontakte", since, according to him, "sooner or later we all become graduates." He began to implement immediately after graduation. Pavel and his brother, Nikolai Durov, founded the VKontakte limited liability company and launched a beta version of the network of the same name, whose domain - vkontakte.ru - was, according to official data, registered on October 1, 2006. At first, the site was closed, in other words, it was possible to register only after a personal invitation.

But at the end of the year, registration became free. In a few days, the network attracted more than 2,000 users; reason - competition - iPod to the one who invites more friends. The rapidly growing number of users forced the creators to change servers and improve software support for the network. Pavel repeatedly received offers to buy his product, but he rejected them. Instead, the programmer attracted investors to his project. VKontakte developed before our eyes. Already in 2007, it became the third most popular site in Runet, in 2008 the network was monetized, and the number of users exceeded 20 million. In 2010, Pavel's company moved into the Singer house, which is located on Nevsky Prospekt, opposite the Kazan Cathedral.

In 2007, the Delovoy Petersburg newspaper named Durov one of the winners in the Best Young Entrepreneurs 2007 competition. In 2011, Durov, with a fortune of 7.9 billion rubles, ranked 350th in the ranking of Russian billionaires. In December 2011, Pavel and the head of the DST Global fund, Yuri Milner, launched the Start Fellows charity project, which aims to finance startups selected on a competitive basis. By the end of December, six startups received $25,000 each. On January 24, 2012, at the Digital Life Design (DLD) conference in Munich, during a joint speech with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Pavel promised to donate one million dollars to the online encyclopedia. In March, the transfer of the promised amount to the account of the Wikimedia Foundation was confirmed. "We greatly appreciate Mr. Durov's generous offer and thank you for your understanding of the grant review process," said Jay Walsh, spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation.

On May 27, 2012, top managers of VKontakte, led by Durov, threw airplanes with 5,000-ruble banknotes attached to them from the window of the company's central office in St. Petersburg. Soon a crowd gathered under the windows, which even started a fight for the money. Later, Pavel explained that by his act he wanted to create a festive atmosphere on City Day. Durov then scattered a total of about 2,000 dollars. The joy with which he watched the reaction of the crowd was also reported. According to eyewitnesses, Pavel filmed what was happening on camera. While working at VKontakte, Pavel lived in a rented apartment near the office, where, according to him, the developers could stay overnight.

On April 5, 2013, it was reported that while driving, Durov turned left from Sadovaya Street to the Moika River embankment, violating the traffic sign. The traffic police officer noticed the offense and tried to stop the car. The driver did not obey the request, continuing to move, and as a result, he hit the employee, inflicting bruises on his legs and abrasions. Initially, the press service of Vkontakte denied Pavel's involvement in the incident, pointing out that their CEO did not have a car. In addition, the car itself belonged to the vice-president of the company, Ilya Perekopsky. But in June, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg proved that it was Durov who was driving. Immediately after the incident, a criminal case was initiated against Pavel under Article 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (use of violence against a representative of the authorities), which, after the investigation, was closed in June 2013, and the offense itself fell under Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (disobedience to the lawful order of a police officer) because the investigation did not collect enough evidence of the deliberate use of violence.

In September 2013, it became known that the criminal case had been returned for additional investigation in order to establish the presence or absence of criminal intent in the actions of Pavel Durov. Evidence indicating that Durov's actions were deliberate and aimed at using violence against a policeman were again not found by investigators, and in early 2014 the criminal case was again dismissed.

In February 2014, the United Capital Partners Fund (UCP), which owns a 48% stake in VKontakte, announced that it intends to defend its interests "in Russian and international jurisdictions." UCP representatives accused Pavel Durov and Mail.ru Group employees of actions contrary to the interests of VK. The fund explained that they had previously tried to resolve issues peacefully, but all proposals were blocked by representatives of the Mail.ru Group and Megafon CEO Ivan Tavrin, who at that time owned a controlling stake in VK (52%). The UCP noted that such behavior of the VK co-owners "extremely surprises and worries" them.

Having exhausted all possibilities for a reasonable agreement, we transfer disputed cases on VK to law firms. The brief essence of our claims - Pavel Durov and representatives of Mail.ru Group systematically made and continue to make decisions not in the best interests of VK ...

UCP Partner Yuri Kachuro

In response, USM Advisors CEO Ivan Streshinsky accused UCP of systematic pressure on VK shareholders:

Since its declared entry into VKontakte, UCP has demonstrated an unwillingness to build constructive relationships with other shareholders and the company's management, preferring a strategy of threats, blackmail and intrigue. In particular, a whole campaign was organized to put legal pressure and publicly discredit the founder of VKontakte, Pavel Durov, with whom UCP began communicating with threats of courts and criminal prosecution.

Ivan Streshinsky

In contact with

VKontakte is the largest social network in Runet, the first most popular site in Belarus, the second in Russia, the third in Ukraine, the fifth in Kazakhstan, and the 26th in the world, which is estimated at $1.5 billion. For example, in September 2012, the daily audience of the site averaged 22 million people. As of September of the same year, more than 140 million users registered on VKontakte. In terms of its growth rate, the social network has broken all Runet records. A major shareholder of the network is Mail.Ru Group, a holding that owns, as of April 2011, 32.49% of all VKontakte shares.

VKontakte provides financial support for the developing Olympiad programming in Russia and sponsors teams of programmers in St. Petersburg and the North-West of Russia. The company's employees include the best Russian programmers, laureates of international competitions in programming and mathematics.

On January 24, 2014, it became known that Durov in December 2013 concluded a deal to sell the remaining 12% of his Vkontakte shares to Ivan Tavrin and ceased to be the owner of the network.

What you own sooner or later begins to own you.

For the past few years, I have been actively getting rid of property, giving away and selling everything I had, from furniture and belongings to real estate and companies. To achieve the ideal, I had to get rid of the largest part of my property - a 12% share of VKontakte. I am glad that not so long ago I achieved this goal by selling my share of VKontakte to my friend Ivan Tavrin.

This change is unlikely to affect the management of VKontakte - the board of directors listens to my opinion not because of the presence or absence of my share, but because I created this network and understand its underlying mechanisms. I'm not going anywhere and I'm going to continue to monitor the quality of VKontakte. In the end, VKontakte is the best that has been created in Russia in the communications field. And my responsibility is to cherish and protect this network.

Pavel Durov

On April 1, Pavel Durov announced on his page that he was leaving the post of general director of VKontakte LLC, explaining this by reducing the available freedom of action, but then, on April 3, he withdrew his resignation. Then it turned out that this was not an April Fool's joke; on April 21, the owners of the VKontakte social network satisfied the letter of resignation, which had previously been sent to them by the CEO and founder of the network, Pavel Durov.

Telegram

On August 14, 2013, the first Telegram client was introduced. In November, the program had, according to TJournal, about 1 million installations. In an interview with The New York Times, Pavel said that the initial idea for the application came to him back in 2011, when special forces came to his door. When the latter nevertheless left, Durov immediately wrote to his brother Nikolai. It was then that he realized that he did not have a safe way to communicate with his brother. The service is based on the MTProto correspondence encryption technology developed by Pavel's brother Nikolai.

In response to the proposals of some officials to ban the messenger on the territory of Russia, on December 24, 2015, on his VKontakte page, Pavel Durov said: “As for Telegram, the project has not and will not give out personal data and encryption keys to third parties. The messenger is popular with tens of millions of users in dozens of markets, and the threat of blocking in one or two of them will not affect its privacy policy.”

Emigration

Pavel Durov and Arkady Volozh at the Yandex Data Factories conference, March 2, 2015
On April 16, Pavel Durov announced that on December 13, 2013, the FSB demanded that the network's management hand over the personal information of the organizers of the Euromaidan groups, to which he refused. In December, a deal was made to sell a stake in the company. According to him, Russian jurisdiction does not apply to Ukrainian users of the social network VKontakte. Durov also noted that the dissemination of data of Ukrainian users would be not only a violation of the law, but also a crime against millions of users from Ukraine.

On April 22, 2014, it became known that Pavel Durov had gone abroad and was not going to return to Russia. He announced this in an interview with TechCrunch. He noted, “Unfortunately, it is not possible to conduct an Internet business in this country.”

“I'm afraid there's no turning back for me. Especially after I publicly refused to cooperate with the authorities. »
The founder of VKontakte also said that in the near future he plans to focus on creating a mobile social network. Later, the UCP fund, which at that time owned a 48% stake in VKontakte, said that it did not consider Pavel Durov's resignation from the post of CEO a fait accompli. UCP partner Yuri Kachuro considered that the executive director of VKontakte exceeded his authority and did not discuss such a serious decision with the board of directors.

Durov constantly moves from country to country, not staying in one for more than two or three weeks. Together with him, his team of programmers, with whom he develops the Telegram messenger, travels to Paris, Singapore and other cities. Pavel reported that he was not a fan of the idea of ​​the state. “Now I am very happy, living without any property and considering myself a citizen of the world.” In addition to the Russian one, he has a passport of the state of Saint Kitts and Nevis, he received this passport after investing in the country's economy.

Views and beliefs

Pavel Durov adheres to libertarian political views, and is also a vegetarian. He advocates reform of the Russian educational system; the abolition of taxes in the field of information; the abolition of the visa system, residence permits and military conscription; reduction of customs duties; granting regions full autonomy; and also for the openness of the jury. He is inspired by Ernesto Che Guevara and Steve Jobs, and according to his religious beliefs, according to some sources, he is a Pastafarian, according to others, a supporter of the Zen school. On October 10, 2017, on his birthday, he spoke about seven things that he refused many years ago, and which, in his opinion, negatively affect consciousness: 1) Alcohol 2) Animal meat 3) Pills and any pharmaceutical products 4) Nicotine and other drugs 5) Coffee, black and green tea, energy drinks 6) Fast food, sugar, carbonated drinks 7) Television and its analogues.

Attitude towards Facebook

When it became known that Facebook was looking for employees in Russia, Durov said that VKontakte employees did not switch to another network for employment, since "there are no fools" and Facebook is a "sinking ship." A month earlier, he had already called the American social network “a stronghold of pedoliberals,” and in May 2012, on his Twitter account, he ironically called it “a cheap craft.”

Business manner

Durov is characterized by a tough, sometimes even arrogant style of doing business. In 2011-2012, he waged a "corporate war" with a major shareholder of Vkontakte, Mail.ru Group. The conflict began in March 2011 with the holding's attempts to absorb the social network, buying 100% of its shares, and merge the site with Odnoklassniki. In response, Durov called Mail.ru a "thrash holding", gave them the middle finger, and convinced the co-founders of VKontakte not to sell their shares. In April 2012, the “war” ended.

In the spring of 2012, a conflict broke out between VKontakte and the editors of the Vedomosti newspaper. Thanks to a technical innovation on the site, users could view the full texts of articles in web publications without clicking on an active link. Vedomosti considered this illegal and openly accused the social network of copyright infringement. VKontakte ignored the statement, and later turned off the activity of links to the publications of the Vedomosti website. In the end, the editorial office of the newspaper removed the VKontakte widgets from its website and “frozen” the official page of the publication on the social network. The managing director of the Vedomosti publishing company accused Durov of being unable to conduct a "civilized business."

What's happened?

Pavel Durov's team introduced the Telegraph online publishing service. Platform users can create and post posts anonymously, without registration and authorization.

“Today we are launching Telegraph, a publishing tool that allows you to create impressive publications based on markdown (a lightweight text markup language for the web. - Esquire), with photos and all kinds of embedded elements,” the messenger’s official blog says.

As an example scenario for using the tool, the creators suggested the following option: “With Telegraph, your Telegram channel can serve stories in the same way as the media.” Is the service capable of taking on the mission of replacing or duplicating modern media? Let's answer this question.

How does the Telegraph work?

Anyone can use the new publishing tool. The service is located at www.telegra.ph. When navigating through it, the user will find an almost blank white page with a few lines. Each of them is signed, so it is impossible to get confused in the algorithm of actions or get lost.

The topmost field was left under the heading. By the way, along with the date of publication, it will be displayed in the online address of the future post. For example: http://telegra.ph/This-line-for-header-12-03.

Below is the field that the developers left under the name of the author. But since the service is declared anonymous, it is not necessary to enter personal data. If desired, you can specify any nickname.

The authors of Telegraph created the third line for the main content of the publication: text, embedded components and links. For editing, the user has a rather limited number of tools. Text can be bold or italicized and enlarged. There are only two orientation options. By default, the material "tends" to the left edge. Center orientation is available as an option. But in this case, the font and size change.

What does it give?

So far, Instant View only works with a few sites, including blog hosting Medium and TechCrunch. It was the Instant View option that got the role of a tool that should close the audience on the messenger as tightly as possible, cutting off the desire to go to the original source of the publication.

But the creator can edit the finished content only if the cookies are saved. After clearing the browser cache, it will no longer be possible to change the content of the post. Just like trying to change something from another device. This is the price of anonymity.

Some media channels have an audience of up to one million people. At the same time, all Telegram channels collect four hundred million views daily. Pavel Durov shared these figures at the Mobile Congress in Barcelona in February. Then he added that the next step in the development of the messenger would be channels for the media and bloggers. They will provide direct access to the audience. In traditional social networks, it has become much more difficult to achieve it, since your voice is lost in the news feeds, Durov is sure.

The advent of Telegraph and Instant View is more of a natural development than a breakthrough. I agree with this and Head of Viber in Russia and the CIS Evgeny Roshchupkin. According to him, the current state of social networks is a consequence of user demand: “New media, which include instant messengers, are developing at an incredible speed, transforming into full-fledged platforms for business and the end user. Already now, using the example of public accounts in Viber, we can say that brands, and especially the media, understand that this type of communication is a response to a user request. As part of this functionality, it is possible not only to post news, but also to receive feedback from readers, who represent a very high-quality mobile audience. However, it is too early to talk about direct competition with the media: instant messengers are a promising, but additional and specific tool for generating content. And although we have examples of successful public accounts with an audience of more than a million subscribers, we understand that great professionals are needed to maintain such a level of content. Thus, in my opinion, instant messengers can be a good help for the media, but they will not absorb them.”

The fact that the new features of Telegram are not a breakthrough is also evidenced by the fact that the title of pioneer goes to Facebook. The brainchild of Zuckerberg was the first to launch a feature comparable to Instant View Instant Articles. It has been integrating materials from mobile versions of National Geographic, BuzzFeed, The New York Times and other publications into the social network without users switching to parent sites since April. And in the test mode, the calculus began already in 2015. Today, many social networks, including Russian ones, are working on a similar idea of ​​a platform.

Will the Telegraph and Telegram kill the media?

The expression “killer of anything” (product, service, industry) sounds at least vulgar. As a maximum, this phrase devalues ​​and discredits the very source of the threat. Remember those countless "iPhone killers", Uber, which "killed" all taxi services. Such things are more likely to change the market, introduce new rules, but do not suddenly make someone disappear.

Whether there are prerequisites for replacing the media with social networks and managers depends on the view on the concept of mass media, — said Vice President of Mail.Ru Group Anna Artamonova. “If by media we mean channels for getting information to people, then definitely yes. If we mean some kind of editorial with people who have their own opinion, the range of topics they cover, and the policy of presenting the material, then no. Messengers and social networks tend to become a platform, not a unit of meaning. This is a broader and more correct strategy. The idea is to give anyone a platform to share information, but not to express their position in doing so. Messengers and social networks will definitely not keep their editorial staff, which will produce content: write texts, shoot stories, and the like.

In addition, there are two factors. The first is legislation. Now the media, especially in Russia, are quite strictly regulated in the legal field. And for some opinion, information, someone should be responsible. And secondly, the ability and desire to write texts, to make any content is not for many people.”

Classical media will not disappear, or rather, those of them who manage to transform their business model will survive, believes Executive Director of the Institute for Applied Data Analysis Deloitte Alexey Minin: “Why is the future for Google, Amazon, Facebook and other IT companies? Because they, becoming essentially marketplaces, demonetize the brand of those organizations that provide services to them. The media will need to abandon the traditional model of offering information. People don't want to look for her anymore. It is much more convenient for them to have some kind of media aggregator, where they can receive relevant information at the request of a chatbot or in some other way. That is, the media become a source of products that will be delivered to a single platform for communication with customers.

In general, the main point of the marketplace is that it knows everything about its users. For example, at what time and with what frequency they read certain news. And the task of such aggregators is to cut off the media from customers, because it is these customers that they will subsequently sell. Similar transformations of business models are already taking place in banking and retail (especially in electronics retail). In the near future, changes will affect the print media, and then the entire media sector.”

In other words, now we see that the media, as best they can and how they can, are mastering social networks, learning to export and even reproduce content on a permanent basis on new platforms.

So far, social networks and instant messengers are not a threat to the media, and Telegraph is a completely unsuccessful product, said Head of the Community Laboratory Vladislav Titov: “If Durov’s first two startups were successful (“VKontakte” and Telegram), then as for Telegraph, there are big questions. Anonymity of authorship can be widely used by extremist informal organizations. They can arrange to receive conditionally coded messages with seemingly meaningless text at a certain time. And those who need it will read these messages. If WhatsApp, Viber and Facebook Messenger are quite loyal to all special services in all countries and are actively fighting illegal elements, then Pavel Durov just insists that Telegram is free from this. And Telegraph is an even wider field, you don’t even need to register there. And I doubt very much that this service will be of interest to ordinary users.”

According to the Statista resource, by September of this year, Telegram had 100 million users installed. By the same time, according to Similarweb research, Telegram was in 21st place among the most popular social networks in the world.

What are the consequences of weakening the encryption of user correspondence. He expressed confidence that communication tools like Telegram and WhatsApp messengers "cannot become unsafe only for potential terrorists."

“Encrypting these services either protects all users equally or puts them all at risk. The rejection of end-to-end encryption in a single country will leave tens of millions of people defenseless from attacks by hackers and blackmail by corrupt officials,” the entrepreneur warned. Durov again recalled that the weakening of encryption in messengers would undermine the country's national security, since foreign intelligence services would also have access to the correspondence of Russians. “At the same time, the risk of terrorist attacks will not disappear - as the events in Paris showed, disposable phones and ordinary CMC without any encryption are enough to carry out a terrorist attack,” the billionaire is sure.

On June 23, the head of Roskomnadzor turned to the owner of Telegram, Durov, with a request to transfer data to include the messenger in the registry. He threatened to block the messenger in case of refusal to cooperate with the department. The entrepreneur said, in turn, that the possible blocking of the Telegram messenger in Russia would lead to the transfer of information about the correspondence of Russian citizens to US-controlled cloud services. “As soon as Telegram is blocked, the correspondence of Russian officials, their communication with friends and relatives, and other sensitive data via WhatsApp / Viber will go to Apple iCloud / Google Drive clouds controlled by America,” the billionaire emphasized.

Later, the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia reported that during the preparation of the terrorist attack that took place in the St. Petersburg metro on April 3, the suicide bomber and his accomplices used the Telegram messenger "to hide their criminal intentions at all stages of organizing and preparing a terrorist act." The intelligence service clarified that in Russia, terrorists and their accomplices most actively use the Telegram messenger, “providing terrorists with the opportunity to create secret chats with a high level of encryption of transmitted information.”

Zharov, in turn, again recalled that the time to resolve the conflict with Telegram "is calculated in days" and that one should "use the last opportunity for communication and dialogue." “In the optimistic scenario, he answers, we enter the Telegram messenger into the register of information dissemination organizers, and this is where the work of Roskomnadzor ends. Pavel Valeryevich has demonstrated that he is ready to work in the Russian legal field, and that's all for now, ”explained Zharov on the air of the NTV channel.

The Kremlin agreed to switch to other messengers if Telegram is blocked in Russia. This was stated by the press secretary of the President Dmitry Peskov. “If, as a result, the services of this messenger are not available, then we will switch to another one and see which one will be more convenient. In this case, there is also competition, there is a plurality, that is, a choice,” the Kremlin spokesman said.

Updated: On April 13, 2018, the Tagansky District Court ruled to block Telegram. The messenger refused to provide the FSB with the keys to decrypt user correspondence. On April 16, Russian providers began blocking. Telegram founder Pavel Durov said that the messenger will use built-in blocking bypass methods that do not require user action, but 100% availability of the service without a VPN is not guaranteed.

In October 2013, the popular Arabic blogger Khaled has published several posts about the Telegram messenger that has just appeared in the App Store. It all started when another user, @AboMayar, recommended him to try this app. Khaled responded by posting an angry cat, but then began to encourage subscribers to use Telegram. The blogger's posts contributed to a surge in downloads - in a few weeks, the Telegram audience grew to 100,000 users. Khaled and @AboMayar still promote the messenger on their twitters, while Telegram denies that the bloggers are salaried employees.

Saudi Arabia, like other Gulf countries, has become one of Telegram's growth points. Bill Hyder, a developer from Saudi Arabia, wrote in your Twitter account: “Telegram is getting popular. I know about two government agencies that asked their employees to register in the messenger.”

Pavel Durov built the marketing of his project on the idea of ​​"security" under the slogan "Taking back our right to privacy" and in every possible way instilled in users the confidence that no special services would be able to read their messages. According to the entrepreneur, Telegram is growing thanks to a good product - users communicate about it to each other in one way or another - and also because WhatsApp's main competitor "sucks". “It is necessary every month to roll out a serious product update at least, which pulls on a revolution,” Durov told Sekret about his strategy. - You need to be faster, prettier, simpler and at the same time more functional than the main competitors. You need to have a serious ideological basis that will appeal to trendsetters. We need to change the industry both in narrow technological and mainstream aspects.”

Sounds inspiring, as always, but the story of Telegram's promotion would be incomplete without parsing a few bizarre episodes. All marketing stories around the messenger were based on the topic of security. And it worked - in June 2014, Telegram was named the fastest growing startup in Europe, and in February 2016, Durov's service passed the mark of 100 million users.

"Secret" sorted out the collisions associated with the growth of Telegram, and the nature of the messenger's success.

A year after VKontakte, the first employees

Telegram was born in scandals. Since the spring of 2012, Telegram has had a separate legal entity, where the first employees moved from VKontakte. The service concept has changed several times. Initially, Durov planned several projects in parallel: Telegraph was supposed to develop towards geochats, dating, and so on, Telegram was built on the idea of ​​end-to-end encryption and encrypted voice communication, Pictograph was supposed to adopt the ideas of Instagram. After a scandal broke out around the data published by the former CIA officer Snowden in June 2013, Durov decided to concentrate on the security of communication. He used ideas from the Telegraph and Pictograph in the messenger.

Telegram appeared as part of the non-profit organization Digital Fortress and was launched with Durov's money. He is still financing the project alone, having earned about $300 million from the sale of his stake in VKontakte. According to Durov, the costs are more than $1 million per month. In an interview with the Washington Post, Axel Neff, who opened a company in the US and bought servers for Telegram, described the concept as follows: “Create a series of messengers that rely not on phone operators, but on data centers.” Durov stated that Telegram is located in several jurisdictions and this avoids pressure from the authorities of any of the countries.

Durov's elder brother Nikolai wrote the MTProto information encryption protocol. According to Sekret, the design of the messenger was developed by the former VKontakte designer Alexei Dobromyslov and Pavel Durov himself, and the artist Andrey Yakovenko also took part in the development of the corporate identity. The app hit the App Store in August 2013, and the Android version launched two months later. At the same time, Telegram employees (mostly developers), on the orders of Durov, organized a separate space on the sixth floor of the Singer house and were given new magnetic cards to enter the office.

The then shareholder of VKontakte, the UCP Foundation, felt that Durov was using the company's resources to create his own application. Durov denied everything: he said that Telegram developers were not connected with VKontakte and even that “strictly speaking, Telegram is not my project.” In 2014, as a result of the proceedings, Durov had to launch a new application on iOS - Telegram HD - and transfer users there from Telegram Messenger.

According to the official version, Telegram is based in Berlin; European media often refer to the company as German. The Secret found out that Telegram never had a main office in Berlin (although Durov rents an apartment there), key developers worked on Telegram all from the same Singer house where VKontakte sits. Several sources confirmed that Durov still visits Singer's house. His brother Nikolay remained to live in St. Petersburg, although he sometimes travels with his brother. The former CEO of Telegram Andrey Lopatin never left St. Petersburg.

Developers, together with Durov, often visit different countries. For example, six months ago telegrammers noted company's birthday in Venice with Napoleon cake. Their leader's movements can be tracked on his Instagram: Dubai, San Francisco, Venice. Another source is Airbnb, through which Durov rents apartments and receives reviews from the owners. For example, Vincent from Paris writes that Pavel and Nikolai are "excellent guests".

Durov still hires employees through competitions. So, Mikhail Filimonov wrote the Telegram desktop application for Mac OS. In 2012, the competition for the development of the VKontakte messenger for iOS was won by Pyotr Yakovlev, but Durov quickly transferred him to work in Telegram.

The Book of Revelations and Interpol

In December 2013, entrepreneur Alexander Vasiliev flew in from Dubai to celebrate (second from right in the photo) the New Year together with VKontakte employees and Pavel Durov. The celebration was held at the Terrace restaurant behind St. Isaac's Cathedral, Vasiliev was sitting at a table next to photographer Alexander Mavrin, who invited model girls to the party. Vasiliev was interested in the recently launched Telegram messenger.

At that time, the service had already attracted those first 100,000 active users, mostly from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. According to Durov, the second wave of Telegram growth in Saudi Arabia is due to the fact that popular TV channels like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya began to start their own channels, and users followed them.

According to one of the former employees of VKontakte, it was not only about TV channels - it was no coincidence that Vasiliev was invited to a party at Terrace, and it was he who could contribute to promotion in the Arab countries. But how?

For a long time, Vasiliev headed the board of directors of the Ukrainian consortium EDAPS, which produced documents, in particular passports, not only in Ukraine, but also in the United States, and also worked with the countries of the Persian Gulf. The company is owned by Vasiliev's uncle, entrepreneur Yuri Sidorenko. In the spring of 2015, the US Supreme Court accused the concern of corruption: in 2005-2010, company representatives paid bribes to Maurizio Siciliano, an official of the International Civil Aviation Organization, who was in charge of projects related to machine-readable documents. According to investigators, in exchange for his help, Siciliano received money every month, as well as assistance in finding a job for his son in the EDAPS structures in the UAE, where Sidorenko and Vasiliev lived. According to the case file, the main project that Siciliano lobbied for the Ukrainians was the introduction of electronic passports for Interpol employees.

An important piece of evidence for the prosecution was the e-mail correspondence between Siciliano and the owners of EDAPS, which the investigators, by permission of the court, had been reading through Gmail and Facebook for several years. In this case, Vasiliev served time in a Swiss prison and was extradited to the United States in April 2015. Close ties with the UAE have been established for him and his uncle for a long time - for example, in 2011 Sidorenko built the first Orthodox church in the country.

During the EDAPS scandal, Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble, who had worked there for 14 years, resigned. After that, he opened a secure document company RKN Global in Dubai in partnership with EDAPS. Vasiliev helped Noble arrange a meeting with Durov. After rumors surfaced that Microsoft wanted to buy the Blackberry smartphone maker used by Interpol, the international police began to look for a messenger for internal correspondence.

Durov does not deny that he met with Interpol, but on a different issue: he found out whether he would be extradited at the request of the Russian authorities in the event of an aggravation of the situation around VKontakte and Telegram, and made sure that people like him were not handed over through Interpol . According to him, no partnership ideas were discussed in detail. (Noble did not respond to The Secret's request.)

Vasiliev said that he helped promote Telegram, but did not share details: “I help ideas that I believe in. All this is a non-public story due to the people who are involved in it. I can say that these were people who could influence many others.” Sources close to the Telegram team said that Vasiliev could have advised the new messenger to top managers of Arab telecommunications companies and other members of the local elite, which rhymes with Hyder's tweet about recommending Telegram to be used in government agencies in Saudi Arabia.

Durov denied the assumptions about business ties with Vasiliev and called information about such a promotion in the elite of Saudi Arabia "game".

Vasiliev lured several programmers who worked on Telegram to him. He launched an application that, in terms of functionality, repeats Durov's messenger, Actor. Former VKontakte tester Ivan Gusev introduced Vasiliev to Telegram developer Stepan Korshakov, who took on the project. It was not difficult to lure Korshakov - by that time, his relationship with Durov had deteriorated. When Vasilyev was convicted, funding for the work on the application ceased. Korshakov continued to develop Actor, the company received investments from the leaders of the Fotostrana social network and is working on the project. There are 10,000 users and the idea is to focus the messenger on b2b communications.

Now Vasiliev, according to him, has found his life's work and is developing the Book of Revelations application, which predicts fate by date of birth. By the way, it was created by Vyacheslav Krylov, who won Durov's competitions for the development of Telegram clients.

open source

Telegram was launched when the WhatsApp application of Jan Koum, a native of Ukraine, was already popular all over the world. Another competitor - Viber - had tens of millions of users in Iran, Russia and other countries. In addition, local messengers developed in some regions: Hike in India, WeChat in China, Line in Japan. To become noticeable in the market, Durov needed to loudly declare himself. The stake on security and the "top-secret protocol" played an important role, although Durov was criticized for it by many experts and competitors - he allegedly builds marketing on the fear of users. Durov also created an open platform based on the Telegram API, where any programmer can create clients and their applications.

According to Priori Data, in 2015 in Italy, Telegram was downloaded 2 million times on iOS and Android (although WhatsApp still leads the way and ranks first among all applications). Programmer Riccardo Padovani (who works for drone company Archon and supports open source) believes that the main reason for the popularity of the messenger in the country is the strong open source community that promotes open source products like Telegram. Such projects are loved there: for example, the Libreoffice office suite is used even by the Italian army.

In addition, Windows Phones still dominate Italy, thanks to Nokia, and Padovani believes Telegram performs better on the platform than WhatsApp. In Italy, there is a popular SpacoBot bot that makes obscene jokes in large groups, for some it has become an excuse to download Telegram.

Following the users, officials and ministries began to open their channels in Telegram. The parish of the Catholic Church in Pompeii started a channel for the sermons of the Pope, and then the channel was opened by the Ministry of Economy and Finance - @MEF_GOV.

WhatsApp was the most popular app in Brazil in 2015, with around 70% of smartphone users using it, according to Nielsen. In February 2015, a Brazilian court ruled to block the messenger, but the service was never turned off. Against the background of these news, 2.5 million local residents joined Telegram. According to Priori Data statistics, in 2015 Telegram received almost 10 million downloads on Android in Brazil (versus 691,000 on iOS).

This was achieved thanks to the ZapZap service, the most successful application on the Telegram API (more than 6 million downloads on iOS alone). Users of such applications are considered Telegram users because they are stored on Durov's servers. In an interview with The Secret of the Firm, ZapZap founder Eric Costa said that "ZapZap gave life to Telegram in Brazil and turned it into a social network." When a user likes an app, it sends an invite and calls their friends - that's how it spreads. ZapZap has over 20,000 user-created groups. The company regularly communicates with Durov's team to resolve technical issues. Recently, the Brazilian authorities launched a program to support outsourcing projects in order to reduce the cost of royalties to foreign companies like Microsoft. So far, Costa has not received any support.

Large companies have also built applications on the Telegram API. For example, Samsung launched its Socializer based on the service, but did not achieve success (10,000 downloads on Android; Samsung did not respond to the Secret's request about this).

Prohibited

In 2014, Telegram showed explosive growth in Iran. Locals joke that the biggest migration in history has taken place - from Viber to Telegram. Due to the Israeli roots of Viber, this service was banned in the country, and 20 million users gradually switched to Durov's messenger. Viber CEO Mikhail Shmilov did not comment on Telegram's breakthrough, but clarified that "Viber is now available there via VPN, which complicates the user experience."

Iranian politicians addressed the residents of the country on Telegram during the election campaign. The video of former President Mohammad Khatami was viewed by 3 million users in a day. "Telegram is much simpler and clearer," political activist Ali Alemni, who campaigned for voters to join Telegram, told The Associated Press. Following the results of the elections, the authorities named Telegram as one of the important channels that led them to victory.

Telegram was accused of being used by ISIS terrorists (an organization banned in Russia), because in 2015 it was the only one with secure end-2-end encryption with self-deleting messages. The channels caused a great resonance, since, according to Vocativ, the terrorists even collected money for weapons through the application. In November, Durov banned 78 channels dedicated to ISIS.

With the growing popularity of the messenger, the authorities have questions for its authors. Iranian cyber police demand to transfer servers with user data to Iran and threaten to block; From time to time, Telegram becomes partially or completely unavailable. The police have already arrested the administrators of 20 groups, accusing them of spreading “immoral content.”

In 2014, at a press conference with the participation of Russian Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Vaezi, the talk turned to the fact that countries would support each other in terms of "security and politics." Loyalty to Russians is perhaps one of the reasons why Telegram is not yet blocked in this country.

Recently, the Iranian authorities held a tender for the development of their own messenger. When it appears, they can block Telegram to force users to switch to a local service. By the way, the winners of the tender are creating a messenger on the Actor Korshakov platform.

The statements of the authorities about the blocking of Telegram are in its favor so far: the messenger is gaining more and more fans among freedom fighters. Claims of increased censorship motivate users to look for more secure messengers, and they think of Telegram first.

For example, in Korea, the news that the state will control people through the popular KakaoTalk service brought millions of users to Telegram. According to research firm Ranky.co, KakaoTalk lost 400,000 users in one week, while Telegram was downloaded by a million Koreans. “Through Telegram, Korean users can promote their culture,” Durov promised in an interview.

In November 2014, WhatsApp users in India became

They say it's bad to count other people's money. But how not to do this when it comes to a genius businessman who, at the age of 32, got into the top 100 richest businessmen in Russia? So today we count Pavel Durov's fortune- one of the most famous dollar millionaires in Russia and the creator of Telegram.

Durov's first money

Interestingly, Durov never worked anywhere on a permanent basis. At the same time, he does not consider VKontakte and Telegram to be work. As Pavel admitted in an interview, this is too interesting a thing to call it work.

During his student days, Durov worked as a freelancer: he created websites, wrote articles, and organized events. In addition, he won several large grants: scholarships from the President of Russia, the Government of Russia, Vladimir Potanin.

While still a student, Durov developed several programs to improve the social life of the university. For example, he created an electronic library Durov.com with university term papers. Another of his projects, the student forum Spbgu.ru, became the prototype of the VKontakte social network.

Later, Durov realized that forums where everyone hides behind nicknames have no future. He came up with the idea to create a resource where people would use real names and photos and add information about themselves. The project was called "Student.ru", later it was renamed "VKontakte" so that graduates could also use the service. Thus began Durov's path to a multi-million dollar fortune.

Durov's salary on VKontakte

During the existence of VKontakte, Durov's salary increased by 218 times. The first salary - a little more than 26 thousand rubles - he received in early 2007 as a general director. After the probationary period, Durov's salary increased to 115 thousand rubles, and in 2008 it was raised to 345 thousand. In 2013, Durov already received 5.76 million rubles.

In 2014, the Russian media published news about an audit carried out at the request of shareholders on VKontakte. It was reported that Durov in 2012-2013. spent about 273 million rubles from the company's budget for personal needs. It also turned out that Durov set his own salary and issued multimillion-dollar bonuses every month. It was clarified that during the year he wrote himself 8 bonuses in the amount of about 28 million rubles.

Later, the executive director of VKontakte, Dmitry Sergeev, denied this information. According to him, Durov did not appoint himself a salary, and his salaries grew in proportion to the development of the company.

Durov's first billion

In 2011, Durov became a ruble billionaire - then his fortune was estimated at 8 billion rubles. By that time, he was ranked 350th in the list of the richest people in Russia. From that moment on, Pavel began to constantly flicker in the Forbes lists, including the magazine called him the best Runet startup.

In the same year, the idea of ​​the Telegram messenger was born. When the commandos came to Pavel's door, he wrote to his brother Nikolai. At that moment, Durov realized that he needed a resource for secure communication with loved ones.

The first version of Telegram was released in 2013. In three years, the messenger managed to gather an audience of 100 million people, and it continues to grow.

Sale and dismissal from VKontakte

In January 2014, Durov sold his stake in VKontakte to Ivan Tavrin, CEO of MegaFon. According to experts, he received for his 12% from 360 to 480 million dollars.

The founder of the social network explained that his share did not allow him to influence the board of directors, but thanks to the sale, Pavel will be able to develop Telegram without third-party investors. At the same time, Durov assured that he would remain working in the company as a general director and would continue to develop VKontakte.

However, four months after the sale, in April 2014, Durov quit the company and emigrated from Russia. He paid 250 thousand dollars to the Sugar Fund of the Caribbean country of Saint Kitts and Nevis and automatically received citizenship of this country. So he got visa-free access to 124 countries of the world, including the Schengen countries, the UK, Singapore and Brazil.

Durov and charity

Durov does not spare money for charity. So, in 2011, he founded the Start Fellows Foundation, which supports startups. In 2012, he donated $1 million to Wikipedia and $60,000 to the winners of the Open World Championship in Teenage Programming.

Pavel's last charitable action was an offer for developers of the best chat bots in Telegram. Durov promised from 25 thousand dollars to each author. In total, it turned out to be about a million dollars.

Pavel Durov's current state

In May 2015, VKontakte bought ICVA Ltd from Durov, which owned the main data center of the social network. Most of the information about VK users is stored there. So Durov replenished his fortune by another 909 million rubles.

In 2016, the founder of Telegram took 135th place in the Forbes ranking, having risen to 100th line in a year. By 2017, Durov's fortune had grown from 600 to 950 million dollars, that is, now he owns almost 60 billion rubles. Another hundred million and Durov will become a dollar billionaire.

Durov's main asset is Telegram, and it shows good growth year after year. For the first two years, Durov paid all expenses from his own pocket. In the summer of 2015, he said that he spends $ 1 million on the messenger every month. According to Pavel, several companies offered to finance the project, but he prefers to spend his own funds on development.

In the summer of 2015, Telegram launched an open platform for creating bots that can interact with external services and applications. In the spring of 2017, Telegram got its own . You can pay using Apple Pay or Android Pay. What is important, Telegram does not take a commission for payments: bot developers take the entire income.

So Durov introduces his own business model, which is not focused on maximum profit - unlike most commercial projects. The creator of the messenger said that the Telegram team plans to earn exactly the amount that is required for equipment, transport and salaries for "the best developers in the world." When he will start to bring such money - remains in question.

Analysts estimate the messenger at $ 1 billion - that's how much Google was willing to pay. Durov himself called the amount of 3-4 billion dollars, referring to the latest proposals for the sale. However, he is not going to sell his offspring.

At the beginning of 2018, Telegram finally began to monetize thanks to the launch of an ICO and the release of its own . According to the results of the Pre-Sale, 1.5 billion dollars of investments were attracted, even before the official start of the ICO itself. The release of the Gram currency will make Telegram a profitable project. All relevant information about the development of the Durov blockchain system is published in the channel