Pavel Durov

Entrepreneur, programmer, dollar billionaire

Programmer and businessman, one of the founders of the VKontakte social network and the company of the same name, the cross-platform Telegram messenger and other projects. The dollar billionaire, whose fortune is estimated at $ 17 billion, is ranked 112th among the world's billionaires according to Forbes magazine. A person who puts at the head of activity not earnings, but the process of creation, which in our time is a huge rarity.

Biography

  • 10th October 1984

    Born in Leningrad, in an intelligent family.

  • 1995 year

    First took a great interest in programming

  • 2001 year

    Graduated with honors from the Academic Gymnasium

  • 2002 year

    Entered the Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg State University with a degree in English Philology and Translation

  • 2006 year

    Graduated from the university with honors

    In the summer, a friend introduced Pavel to facebook, after which Pavel got his first VKontakte concept, called Student.ru.

    On October 1, according to official data, the domain vkontakte.ru was registered

  • 2007 year

    Vkontakte becomes the third most popular website on the Russian Internet

    Durov was recognized as one of the winners in the competition "Best Young Entrepreneurs 2007"

  • 2008 year

    The network was monetized, and the number of users exceeded 20 million

  • 2010 year

    Pavel's company moved into the "Singer" house, which is located on Nevsky Prospekt

  • 2011 year

    Durov, with a fortune of 7.9 billion rubles, ranked 350th in the ranking of Russian billionaires

    Pavel and the head of the DST Global fund Yuri Milner launched the Start Fellows charity project

    The first "appeals" of the FSB

    Vkontakte is the first most popular site in Belarus, the second in Russia, the third in Ukraine, the fifth in Kazakhstan, the 26th in the world, [41] which was estimated at $ 1.5 billion

  • 2012 year

    Donated $ 1 Million to Wikipedia in March

    In May, top managers of VKontakte, led by Durov, threw airplanes with 5000-ruble bills attached to them to create a festive atmosphere on City Day

    The publishing house "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber" has released the book by Nikolai Kononov "The Durov Code"

  • 2013 year

    He entered into a deal to sell the remaining 12% stake in Vkontakte to Ivan Tavrin and ceased to be the owner of the network

    First Telegram client introduced in August

    Telegram had about 1 million installations in November, according to TJournal.

  • 2014 year

    Left abroad with no plans to return back

  • 2017 year

    Moved to Dubai, where he remains to this day

  • 2018 year

    Durov announced plans to launch TON blockchain platform with Gram cryptocurrency

  • 2020 year

    Due to the ban on the issue of Gram by the US Securities Commission had to abandon TON

  • 2021 year

    Meeting with the Prince of Dubai

About opinion.

Only 10% of people have their own opinion. Others simply repeat what they read somewhere ... Remember those times when your opinion was completely contrary to the opinion of others? These are the most precious moments to grasp with a stranglehold. The world around us is evolving so rapidly that conventional wisdom becomes a mockery of common sense before our very eyes. Resistance to noise around is a stable benchmark for everyone who wants to make a significant contribution to the development of mankind. Listening to your inner voice does not mean being deaf to the opinions of others. However, forget about democracy among those around you - the voice of an active thinker who changes the world should be a hundred times more significant for you than the voice of an idle man in the street with his right to opinion. But less important than your own. Your belief in the possibility of a different path is much more important for humanity and for all of us than your ability to adapt and echo the impersonal echo of conformists.

About money.

For more than 10 years - since the time when I was a very poor student - I never tire of repeating: money is overvalued, because creation is much more interesting than consumption, and the internal state is incommensurably more important than the external. As soon as you make a cult out of money and exchange "to be" for "to appear", you are sending yourself into voluntary slavery. Debts due to status tinsel, boring work with dull cowards, the need to lie and betray your world - these are just part of the price you pay for an excessive desire for paper.

About the benefits of loneliness.

Communication is overrated. An hour of solitude is more productive than a week of talking.

About order and chaos.

It is believed that order is always good and chaos is always bad. This is one of those delusions, thanks to which mankind suffered from repression, stagnation and wars for a good half of the 20th century. In fact, at the heart of any creative search, discovery, and innovation is disorder. The new can only be born out of chaos - from the unintended, unexpected inconsistency with the familiar. Of course, in conditions of absolute disorder, this "new" has no opportunity to gain a foothold and be useful; therefore, a balance is needed between chaos and order. But without a bit of chaos, progress stops altogether.

About competition.

There are two ways to respond to competition. The first is to improve yourself and your project. The second is to try to harm competitors. The first method works for the long term, the second does not. As soon as you shift your focus from self-development to competitors, you allow yourself to fear them. you are unconsciously bringing closer what you fear. Fear is a self-fulfilling prophecy.