Durov Pavel Valeryevich is a technology entrepreneur, known as the founder and CEO of Telegram.
Place and date of birth — 10 October 1984, Leningrad, Soviet Union.
Biography
The family composition into which he was born and created — he spent much of his childhood in Turin, Italy, where his father worked. His father, Valery Semenovich Durov, holds a doctorate in philology. Pavel Durov’s mother — Albina Alexandrovna Durova.
His brother, Nikolai Durov, is a mathematician with PhD in Physics and Mathematics. From the moment VK.com was founded until mid-2013, he held the position of CTO.
Durov has never been officially married. He has two children — a daughter born in 2009 and a son, Mikhail, born in 2010. The children’s mother is Daria Bondarenko, whom Pavel met during his student years.
Education — Pavel Durov first attended an Italian primary school and, after returning to Russia in 2001, participated at the Academy Gymnasium in St Petersburg. In 2006, I graduated with honors from the Faculty of Philology at St Petersburg State University.
Personal facts from the biography — Durov holds libertarian views and is a vegetarian.
Career
- 2006 — After hearing about Facebook from a friend, Durov decided to create its Russian equivalent. At first, Nikolai and Pavel Durov called the project Student.ru but later changed the name to VKontakte.
The first user registered in October 2006. The platform operated in a closed mode — new members were invited personally.
- December 2006 — registration in VK became open.
- 14 August 2013 — Durov presented the Telegram messenger.
- November 2013 — the number of users exceeded one million. Telegram uses the MTProto encryption technology developed by his brother Nikolai.
- 2014 — Durov sold his 12% stake in the company.
He was officially dismissed on 21 April 2014. The exact reason for his departure from the company remains unknown.
- May 2014 — Durov left Russia, stating that he had no intention of returning
Property
- 2011 — Pavel Durov, with a net worth of 7.9 billion rubles, was ranked 350th among Russian billionaires.
- 2016 — he has been included in Forbes’ list of Russia’s 200 wealthiest business people.
- 2020 — Durov was ranked 30th among the wealthiest entrepreneurs in Russia and 565th in the global ranking.
- 2021 — Forbes ranked Durov 112th among the world’s billionaires with a net worth of $17.2 billion.
- 2022 — Telegram founder Pavel Durov became Russia’s third most prosperous businessman with $15.1 billion and the only representative of the top 10 whose business is unrelated to industry.
Charity
- December 2011 — Together with Yuri Milner, chairman of DST Global, Durov launched Start Fellows, a charity project aimed at funding promising start-ups. By the end of the month, six of them had received $25,000 each.
- 24 January 2012 — at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich, Pavel Durov publicly pledged to donate $1 million to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. In March, a Wikimedia Foundation representative confirmed the funds’ receipt.
- 2022 — Pavel Valerievich Durov joined the One Billion Meals humanitarian initiative. The campaign aimed to help people in need in 50 countries.
Politics
- 16 April 2014 — he stated that on 13 December 2013, the FSB had demanded that VKontakte’s management hand over the personal data of the organizers of groups associated with Euromaidan. Durov refused, which, according to him, cost him a lot, including his stake in the company.
- 16 April 2018 — Roskomnadzor began blocking Telegram in Russia.
- 18 April 2018 — Russian media reported that the blocking was due to the unique services’ fears about Durov’s plans to create a ‘completely uncontrolled financial system.’
With the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Pavel Durov expressed his position. He stressed that the war is a personal tragedy for him, as his maternal lineage comes from Ukraine. He also emphasized that the privacy of user data is a priority for him, and Russian special services will not have access to the personal information of Telegram users.
Scandals
- 24 August 2024 — The Parisian Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Cybercrime arrested Pavel Durov in Paris. Investigators stated that the lack of proper moderation of Telegram and its tools, including disposable numbers, made it difficult to cooperate with law enforcement agencies, making Durov an accomplice in several offenses.
- 28 August 2024 — he got out under judicial supervision with bail and a recognizance not to leave.
Awards
- 2007— Delovoy Peterburg newspaper recognized Pavel Durov as one of the winners of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of the Year competition.
- 2024 — According to Kommersant Publishing House, he topped the ranking of the most popular representatives of Russia’s business elite on social media.