In 2006, a then unknown graduate of St. Petersburg State University, Pavel Durov, came up with the idea of ​​the social network VKontakte, and in 2007 he managed to gather 3 million subscribers on its platform and attract large investments into the project. In 2013, he sold his share, refused the position of general director and went abroad with a team of programmers. Currently lives in the EU and Singapore, working on improving the Telegram messenger and other Internet projects. In 2016, he was listed in Forbes as one of the richest entrepreneurs in Russia.

The era of business based on the notorious “entrepreneurial spirit” is a thing of the past. In the age of information technology, the era of creative innovators begins. The story of Pavel Durov is an example of achieving true recognition of a computer genius and a triumph of reason and forward-looking thinking.

Pavel Valerievich Durov- a representative of a new generation of entrepreneurs, a brilliant programmer, whose fortune at the beginning of 2017 was estimated at $0.6 billion according to Forbes. The story of how a computer genius created his business shakes the hearts of many young people.

Interesting fact: The age difference between Pavel Durov and his brainchild, the social network VKontakte, is exactly 22 years. A unique and ambitious IT project for the CIS countries, it was launched on October 10, 2006 - just on the 22nd birthday of its creator.

In 2016, Pavel Durov entered the Forbes list of “200 richest people in Russia” for the first time, taking 135th place. The world knows his name thanks to the social network VKontakte and the Telegram messenger, and also as a bright, mysterious and, moreover, scandalous person.

In 2014, the ruble billionaire left Russia, arguing that it was impossible to develop an Internet business in this country. Currently he continues to work on innovative projects in the IT field in Europe and Singapore.

Pavel Durov has been a vegetarian for many years, denies the possibility of using political violence (libertarianism), and is inspired by the examples of Ernesto Che Guevara and Steve Jobs.

How did this brilliant and extraordinary person manage to turn his wildest dreams into a real business? How did the computer genius achieve his success? The time has come to reveal the facts of the story of Pavel Durov - “Russian Mark Zuckerberg”.

How geniuses are born - the childhood and youth of Pavel Durov

Pavel was born and raised in the family of a doctor of philological sciences. From an early age he showed a thirst for new knowledge, demonstrated extraordinary thinking and a rebellious spirit.

The desire to win in competition appeared in him as a child, when in terms of successes and achievements he did not want to lag behind his older brother, the polymath Nikolai Durov.

Since Pavel’s father worked in Turin for 5 years, the boy began his schooling in Italy. When the family returned to St. Petersburg, he was sent to the Academic Gymnasium. The reason for this is the in-depth study of all subjects and the teaching of four foreign languages.

Interesting fact: Durov was one of the best students, but this did not stop him from hacking into the gymnasium’s computer network and placing on the computer screensavers a photo of the hated computer science teacher with the provocative inscription “Must die.”

It is noteworthy that in the biography of Pavel Durov there is no information about his education in the IT field. The gymnasium was followed by:

• St. Petersburg State University and a diploma in English philology;
• Military Faculty "Propaganda and Psychological Warfare".

He studied computer science and programming only as an ordinary subject in the school curriculum.

During his student years, the excellent student Durov demonstrated not only a high level of intelligence - he actively participated in the life of the university; showed leadership qualities. During his studies, he was awarded a scholarship from the V. Potanin Foundation and scholarships from the President and Government of the Russian Federation three times.

Interesting fact: In 2002, on the basis of St. Petersburg State University, Pavel launched two non-profit Internet projects: Durov.com (library of abstracts and scientific articles) and Spbgu.ru (student discussion forum). It was Spbgu.ru that became the first sign of the future social network VKontakte.

The history of the formation of VKontakte - how was it?

Durov worked tirelessly on the St. Petersburg State University student forum. He served the technical part, created topics for discussion, and debated with himself from different accounts. However, students registered online under fictitious names, which prevented effective communication.

In 2005, Durov’s friend who returned from the United States introduced him to the social network Facebook, where users posted their real names, surnames and photos. Thus, the desired concept for a website for Russia was found.

In general, Pavel did not like Facebook. But this did not stop him from adopting certain elements of the project.

Durov himself noted: “Steve Jobs studied and copied Sony... If the society of Japan or America in the 80s had treated borrowing the way we do today, nothing could simply have grown there.”

Initially, it was planned to call the social network “Student.ru”, but Durov understood that his audience would be represented not only by students, but also by university graduates. As a result, the name “VKontakte” came naturally - Pavel Durov did not even consider any other options. Eventually:

From ordinary programmers to billionaires - the success of Pavel Durov

Many programmers and entrepreneurs dream of repeating Durov’s success. His unique breakthrough into the world of business combined extraordinary talent, determination, obsession with an idea, perseverance, deep knowledge, and understanding of the needs of the audience. The history of the creation of his business can be represented in the form of the following sequence of stages.

Financial issue

At the beginning of his journey, Durov was faced with a banal question: where to get start-up capital? He himself did not have the necessary amount. The funds were found by his partner, Vyacheslav Miriashvili (they say that he borrowed money from one of his father’s companies). It was decided to register the company as an LLC.

Interesting fact: Initially, Durov's share in the authorized capital was 20% (although he still made the main decisions). Mirilashvili owned 60% of the company and another 10% was bought by his father. 10% was transferred to another founder - Durov's partner - Leviev.
Source: Forbes.ru

Don't sell the business - but attract investors

A year after its founding, 3 million users were subscribers to the VKontakte social network. In terms of page traffic, it surpassed Odnoklassniki and the Chinese portal Xiaoney. In December it became known that this was the second most visited site in Russia (the first was Yandex.ru). Active promotion of the network in the CIS countries began.

Such successes could not but interest the business community. Durov received many offers to purchase VKontakte. Moreover, we were talking about tens of millions of rubles. However, its founder did not plan to deliver his brainchild so soon. In the same year, a transaction was carried out to sell 24.99% of the company to the Digital Sky Technologies (DST) fund. Investor funds poured into the network, but control over it remained with the founders.

Reference: The DST Fund (Digital Sky Technologies) is an investment fund founded in 2005 by Yuri Milner and Grigory Finger for the purpose of investing in Internet projects. In 2010 it was renamed Mail.ru Group.

14 min. reading

Updated: 09/07/2019

One of the biggest challenges is to be yourself in a world that tries to make you like everyone else.

Paul Valerievich Durov (born October 10, 1984, Leningrad) – Russian businessman, programmer, developer and co-founder of the social network VKontakte, led VKontakte as CEO from 2006 to 2014, currently the founder and CEO of the Telegram messenger.

At the age of 31, Mr. Durov entered the Forbes ranking of “Russia’s 200 Richest Businessmen.” They like to call him a “ruble billionaire,” but this data is almost out of date: Mr. Durov is approaching a new title – “ dollar billionaire". From 2016 to 2017, his capital increased from $600 million to $950 million. Now he is in the TOP 100 “richest people in Russia 2017” at position 100 (Forbes).

Pavel is handling millions, but we are not just talking about millions of rubles and dollars. He created a digital country with a multi-million population (over 100 million users), giving life to the VKontakte resource.

How many smart boys from intelligent families become millionaires? What helped Pavel to use his mind correctly, open his own business and achieve success? The biography of Pavel Durov will tell us about this.

Family and childhood of Pavel Durov

Durov Pavel Valerievich was born on October 10, 1984 in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad).

One of his great-grandfathers was a nobleman, the other a farmer, both subsequently lost their property.

The head of the Durov family, Valery Semenovich, Doctor of Philology, headed the department at St. Petersburg State University. Mother, Albina Aleksandrovna, grew up in Omsk, where she learned their language from German settlers. Having moved to Leningrad, she easily entered the journalism department. The grown-up Pasha admits that he is grateful to his father and mother for their upbringing, his parents “ set an example of optimism and hard work even in difficult times for our family.”

Pavel was the youngest in the family; his mother had two more sons: Mikhail (from his first marriage, he was an adult and lived separately) and Nikolai (born in 1980). It was Nikolai who set a worthy example for little Pavlik. The older brother grew up as a smart little boy, at the age of 3 he read “Popular Astronomy”, and at 7 he “clicked” cubic equations. Pasha was gifted in a different way, he often drew pictures of guests at home and deftly caught the similarities.

In 2015, on Twitter, congratulating his father on his anniversary, Durov Jr. noted:

My father taught me and my brother the values ​​of perseverance, honesty and hard work

Hard work and determination are important qualities of a successful person.

Studying in primary schools

Pavel Durov changed four schools. When his father was offered to teach Russian in Turin, the family moved to Italy. Pasha was taken away a few months later, and before that his grandmother took him to a regular Leningrad school.

From 1990 to 1992, Pasha studied at the Coppino-Falletti di Barolo school (Turin), and upon returning to St. Petersburg he attended a comprehensive school (1992-1996). There was a conflict with the teachers. In Italy, children were taught differently, without coercion, and the authority of teachers was not hammered into the head of a primary school student. Pavlik could make a remark to the English teacher, reproaching him for incorrect pronunciation. In the 4th grade, Pasha became interested in programming and, together with Nikolai, created programs on his first computer, an IBM PC XT. In the computer class, instead of a screensaver, he installed a photo of a computer science teacher on school cars, signing it with the friendly “must die” (English: “must die”).

In 1996, the young rebel was transferred to the Academic Gymnasium of St. Petersburg State University, where lessons, including 4 languages, are taught in depth. Pavel values ​​the acquired knowledge very much; according to the millionaire, knowledge of languages ​​broadens his worldview and promotes career growth. Durov has 9 foreign languages, he can easily maintain a conversation in international English, exotic Persian, Latin, as well as Français, Deutsch, Español, Italiano.

In the experimental classes of the gymnasium, Durov meets the same smart people as himself. Nevertheless, classmates described him as a non-team student, claiming that he “always found a way to be independent.” Journalist Nikolai Kononov, whose biography of Durov belongs, will come to the conclusion that Pavel “was known as a sociopath because few people wanted to talk to anyone at school.”

In 2001, Pavel Durov graduated from high school with honors, did not reach the “gold”, and was awarded a silver medal. When asked “what do you want to become,” the graduate joked: “an Internet totem.” In principle, he became one - an idol, a symbol, a totem of the most popular Russian-language social network.

University years

In 2001, Pavel became a student at the same university as Kolya. The older brother is studying mathematics and programming at St. Petersburg State University, and Pasha chose the specialty “English Philology and Translation”.

A philology student becomes a university activist. " Pavel spoke quietly, but for some reason everyone fell silent and began to listen“- this is how businessman and scientist Yuri Lifshits, also a student at St. Petersburg State University, speaks about Durov’s leadership charisma. Pavel is included in the ranking of students with the highest level of intelligence. For his outstanding achievements, he was awarded a government scholarship and a scholarship from the President of the Russian Federation. Durov has been a recipient of the V. Potanin program for 3 years in a row.

As a student, Durov acted as a web developer for two Internet projects:

• The Durov.com resource is a platform for students to exchange useful information, an electronic database of essays, coursework, etc.
• The website spbgu.ru is a forum for students of St. Petersburg State University. Here Durov intuitively “felt” for the future concept of “VKontakte” - he modeled a real communication scheme: when creating a profile, students indicated their real first and last name, department. “I tried to light the fire,” admits Pavel, who contributed hot topics for discussion to the forum. “We had to create the illusion of a critical mass.”

While working on these non-profit projects, Pavel saw that power comes not only from money, but also from control of information. Running websites got him used to the idea of ​​having no boss . He strives to work for himself, and not for his “uncle.”

In 2005, with the rank of “reserve lieutenant,” Durov graduated from military school with a specialization in “Propaganda and Psychological Warfare.” In 2006, he leaves his alma mater, having earned a diploma with honors.

Founding and development of VKontakte

After university, Pavel took up the creation of VKontakte. It all started with friendly advice. His classmate Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, a student at Tufts University (USA), observed the growing popularity of the social network Facebook, the creation of Mark Zuckerberg, in America. Having learned from “Business Petersburg” about the St. Petersburg State University forum and Durov’s successes, he wrote to Pavel about the idea of ​​​​creating a similar Russian-language network. Durov liked the plan, because the search for classmates was personally relevant for him and Vyacheslav: After all, we might never meet again.

At first the site was called “Student.ru,” but then Pavel changed the name to a more comprehensive one. Durov created the portal’s logo quickly, typing it in “Tahoma” font in 3 minutes. He chose colors that " don't piss anyone off"– blue, white and gray.

The site has not become just a “Facebook clone”. Durov claimed that they “never copied without using their brains.”

The friends did not have start-up capital, Vyacheslav turned to his father, Mikhail Mirilashvili, for help. Thanks to his support, VKontakte LLC was established and the project was launched. There were three founders of the company: Vyacheslav Mirilashvili with a controlling stake, and co-owners Lev Leviev and Pavel Durov with a non-controlling share of securities.

FIRST STEPS OF THE SITE

In 2006, the number of visitors to Runet social networks grew exponentially: Odnoklassniki, launched in March 2006, had gained 1.5 million users by November. The demo version of VKontakte appeared on time - in September 2006, just a little more and it could have been late. Durov created a personal page with ID No. 1 http://vkontakte.ru/id1.

At first the site was closed, registration was available by personal invitation. After 3 months, from December 2006, the resource began to be replenished by everyone. Aspiring businessmen organized a drawing with a prize from “invite more friends and you will receive an iPod.” In a couple of days, the site attracted over 2 thousand users.

Pavel selected the right people for his team.

Remember: there are very few of you who can do something and not talk.

Actions, not words, lead a person to success.

Durov decisively fired those who raised any doubts. His brother Nikolai worked with him. He resolved issues of server load, which were very relevant: from 2006 to 2007, the VK audience increased to 3 million.

Durov was awarded the title of “Best Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2007” by the publication “Business Petersburg”, and in the same year the popular vote of the Runet Prize put the portal in 2nd place. The resource of that time was non-profit, without advertising, and thus fundamentally differed from other Internet endeavors.

VKontakte is beginning to interest potential buyers, but Pavel does not want to sell the development; instead, he attracts investors. The first financial sponsor was Yuri Milner, Chairman of the Board of the Digital Sky Technologies investment fund. The Internet investor was remembered by the VKontakte team for the fact that he himself took the initiative and personally came to them.

The investor acquired 24.99% of the shares and later resold them to Mail.ru Group.

In 2008, the network's audience amounted to more than 20 million registered clients. This year the site is being monetized and advertising banners are appearing.

In 2010, the company's central office moved to Nevsky Prospekt 28, to the building of the Singer company. Of the six floors of the house, the web developer rents the top two for the company headquarters. Later, he will buy a huge space - a squat on Nevsky 65, where his overworked employees can also spend the night. Pavel himself did not want to get attached to anything, he rented an apartment nearby, lived here and there, but mostly in a squat. Later he will give the keys to these square meters to Vasily Babich, an employee of the company. Durov didn’t come into the office before 12 o’clock, he worked in his own way until 3-4 o’clock in the morning.

In 2011, with already 7.9 billion rubles in his pocket, the programmer entered the TOP of the richest businessmen in Russia (350th place). One of his colleagues Oleg Andreev explained the results of a newcomer to the IT industry by saying that Durov “ knew how to look through the eyes of a person who has an old browser and slow Internet.”

In 2011, Durov, as the best startup creator on the Runet, was included in the Forbes TOP. However, Pavel is not limited to creating a startup, he decides to finance them. By the end of 2011, six “startups” received $25 thousand each on a competitive basis.

Pavel does not limit the VK audience and dreams of entering the European market. In 2011, the domain moved to the shortened address vk.com, which is easier to understand by residents of other countries.

In 2011, a photo of Pavel Valerievich showing an indecent gesture was published in Forbes. The eccentric hero finds himself in 3rd place in the ranking of extravagant and eccentric businessmen, to whom the press has already included.

This gesture, instead of a thousand words, became Pavel Mail.ru Group’s response to the company’s attempts to absorb the social network. Director of Mail.ru Group Dmitry Grishin already owned Odnoklassniki and wanted to merge the resources together.

The founders of the company, Mirilashvili and Leviev, did not approve of the actions of the freedom-loving co-founder. In April ’12, they sold their part of VKontakte (40% and 8%, respectively) to the United Capital Partners (UCP) group of companies, without informing the other shareholders - Durov and Mail.ru Group - about the deal.

Life in exile

In December 2011, after protests against the falsification of the State Duma election results, FSB officers recommended Durov to block opposition communities and meetings on the resource. The general director of VK rejected the offer, after which he was invited to the prosecutor's office to testify.

In 2011, special forces visited Durov. Durov shared with reporters from The New York Times that the idea of ​​creating Telegram (Durov’s next product after VK) dawned on him precisely at the moment when these trained guys approached his apartment.

They had weapons and looked very serious. It seemed like they wanted to break down the door

Durov advocates free access to information on the Internet. For the convenience of users (free music tracks, videos), he had to pay more than once: content owners filed lawsuits for non-compliance with copyright. In 2010, the State Television and Radio Company VGTRK was the first to take VK to court for illegally posting its content on the site. After 2 years, singer Sergei Lazarev warned that he would sue for pirated content on VK. Durov responded to this by informing on Twitter that Lazarev’s compositions had been removed from the site and quipped that the cultural value of VKontakte had now increased. Durov himself did this check for pirated content:

In January 12th, during the Digital Life Design conference, Pavel announced to Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, his intention to sponsor the encyclopedia. After 3 months, the programmer donated $1,000,000 to the Wikipedia project. The philanthropist believes that money " overrated because creation is much more interesting than consumption.”

Pavel Durov initiated the championship for VK Cup programmers. In 2017, this open youth tournament (from 14 to 23 years old) is held for the fourth time.

His first post on the social network Twitter, dated May 9, read: “People are walking. Of course, 67 years ago Stalin defended Hitler’s right to repress the population of the USSR.” A company spokesman said that the head of VK honors the Victory Day. And the comment arose from the fact that Pavel’s grandfather (WWII participant Semyon Tulyakov), having received three wounds and the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree, was repressed without trial or investigation in peacetime.

2 On May 27, on the city day, VK managers, together with their boss, launched paper airplanes with 5,000-dollar banknotes attached to them from the windows of the central office. Townspeople gathered under the main headquarters of the VK and started a fight over banknotes. Durov was showered with angry comments accusing him of snobbery. The head of VKontakte explained that he only wanted to maintain a cheerful mood on the occasion of the founding day of St. Petersburg, but “ I had to stop quickly - people began to go wild».

HIDDEN CASE

On April 5, 2013, an accident occurred near the VK office. The investigation concluded that the car that hit the traffic police officer was driven by the founder of VK. But in October 2013, due to the “absence of a crime,” the case was closed, then reopened, and closed again in 2014.

In December 13th, the FSB of the Russian Federation asked the head of VKontakte for personal data of the organizers of the Euromaidan communities. The CEO of the social network refused to provide information. He valued the trust of millions of Ukrainian clients of the resource, and considered the issuance of information about the user base illegal.

UCP vs. MAIL.RU

What you own sooner or later begins to own you Durov's quote claims to be included in the collection of classical aphorisms.

He quickly sells off material “anchors”: furniture, property, shares. In 2014, he parted with 12% of VK, selling them to his friend Tavrin (media manager, former head of Megafon). The securities, in turn, were bought from Ivan Tavrin by the Mail.ru group, which eventually acquired a controlling 52 percent. The holder of 48% of the securities, the UCP association, stated that the policies of Mail.ru Group harm the interests of VK and began legal claims.

The X-hour struck on 03/21/14, when Pavel drew up a statement “on his own.” It was signed a month later: “ Probably, in Russian conditions something like this was inevitable, but I’m glad that we lasted 7.5 years.”

On April 22, 2014, information appeared that Pavel Valerievich left his homeland. The former CEO considers his departure final. He commented to TechCrunch journalists that for him there was no way back: Especially after I publicly refused to cooperate with the authorities.

The founder of the portal calls VKontakte the best that has been created in the field of communication on the Russian market, and it is difficult to argue with him. The facts speak for themselves: the startup’s growth in popularity has broken all Runet records. The site, conceived as a means of finding friends, has transformed into the largest social network in the Russian Federation; in terms of the number of “users,” VKontakte is ahead of the Russian-language segment of Facebook and Odnoklassniki. The resource is visited monthly by more than 97 million people (data from April 2017).

PILGRIM'S LIFE

The programmer named 7 conditions under which he could return: reforms of the courts and education, simplification of laws, economic autonomy of the regions, etc.

1 Elected judges and open courts. Durov believes that only judges chosen by ordinary people, not officials, as well as jurors, can ensure the most fair and independent outcome of the proceedings. This, in turn, will help develop entrepreneurial initiative.

2 Deregulation (simple laws). Paul is against the abundance of laws that contradict each other. They stimulate the development of corruption in the country and slow down economic growth.

3 Open competitions for government positions. Officials, fearing for their jobs, form their teams through established friendships and family ties, as a result of which significant positions can be occupied by illiterate and ineffective employees. This also affects the country's corruption and economic development. It is necessary to introduce transparent mechanisms and direct elections to government positions.

4 A tax haven based on income from the export of raw materials. Russia is rich in natural resources. It is necessary to free underdeveloped sectors of the economy from taxes and shift their burden to well-developed raw material sectors. This will help attract investment, equalize the balance of development and give impetus to the economic development of the entire state.

5 Economic autonomy of regions. It is necessary to change the taxation structure in such a way that the bulk of regional taxes remain locally and are not redistributed, as now, to the capital.

6 Abolition of feudal remnants. Freedom of consciousness of the population is the basis of progress and economic development of Russia, which is currently hampered by the slave consciousness formed through military service, the institution of registration, and the need to obtain a separate passport for travel.

7 Destandardization of the education system. The modern education system limits the consciousness of the younger generation and forms stereotyped views. We need flexibility and non-standard training programs that will educate free and creative individuals.

In his VK profile, in the “political beliefs” column, “libertarianism” is listed (a movement that prohibits “aggressive violence”).

Now I am very happy, living without any property and considering myself a citizen of the world

Pavel has citizenship of Saint Kitts and Nevis, he received it for investing in the country’s economy. The passport of this state in the Caribbean with a population of 50 thousand allows you to freely travel around the world. Durov does not sit still, he changes locations a couple of times a month. Together with him, programmers developing Telegram travel to different cities and countries.

Telegram is a new project by Pavel Durov

On August 14, 2013, Telegram was launched, an application for smartphones and other mobile devices where you can exchange text messages and files of various formats. The messenger is designed with an emphasis on speed and security.

Telegram allows you to supplement your posts with funny pictures – stickers. A special feature of the stickers in the application is the absence of a background, which creates the illusion of a sticker.

The messenger is free for users, but it costs Durov a lot. Pavel – “2 in 1”, is both the founder and sponsor of Telegram. Every year Durov finances it with approximately $12 million. He warns against being overly concerned with money: “ boring work with dull cowards, having to lie and betray your world - these are just part of the price you pay for excessive desire for paper.

Telegram uses a special message encoding method developed by Nikolay Durov. The server part uses the power of US and German companies. Durov's project was developed on the assumption that "all communication channels are monitored." “Even our system administrators cannot access user chats,” assures the creator of the system.

In June 2014, Telegram was awarded a prestigious award in Berlin - at the Europas competition it was named the fastest growing startup of the year. The Europas Prize was established in 2009 and selects the most progressive and innovative technology startups in Europe.

In November 2014, the application had about 1 million installations (data from TJournal), a couple of months later – already 35 million.

In 2014, The New York Times named the entrepreneur Russian. The programmer admits: My dream is to break the national inferiority complex by proving that products from Russia can be in massive demand all over the world.

In 2015, there was talk of selling Telegram to Google Corporation (for $1 billion), but Durov denied information about the deal.

In February 2016, another reason to celebrate appeared: Telegram reached the 100 million mark. active users per month.

Representatives of the Russian government warned of blocking Telegram if Durov does not change the anonymity policy. But the fundamental concept of Telegram implies the security of correspondence; Pavel refused to give out information about users.

FSB officers stated that when planning the explosion in the St. Petersburg metro that occurred on April 3, 2017, Telegram was used as a communication channel. The messenger has been called a way for terrorists to communicate.

“Privacy is ultimately more important than our fear of bad things like terrorism,” the Telegram creator said in an interview with TechCrunch. “ISIS will always find other ways to communicate.”

When asked by Roskomnazdor in May 2017 to provide information for registering the messenger, its founder refused. In June, Durov nevertheless sent information, warning that further release of clients’ personal data was out of the question.

Pavel Durov encrypts his personal life no less carefully than his correspondence on Telegram. Little more is known about her than a donut hole. He does not post photos with his beloved on his pages on the Internet, and it is not known whether he has one. The heartfelt connections attributed to him (with Alena Shishkova, Vika Odintsova, Daria Bondarenko) are unverified. Pavel does not post images of his loved ones; instead, he shares photos of the beautiful places he visits.

Personal life and worldview of Pavel Durov

Pavel’s love for the color black in his wardrobe, to which he has been partial since his university days, is also noted by the European media: “all-black wardrobe,” they succinctly comment. suggested “a car of any color, if this color is black,” we can say that Durov wears clothes of any color, if this color is black.

Indeed, with a height of 178 cm and a weight of 75 kg, Pavel can afford to show off a little. This image of a figure in black received over half a million likes on VK!

The image of a figure in black received over half a million likes on VK

Pavel is a member of the Mensa community, which includes people with an IQ exceeding the intelligence level of 98% of the world's inhabitants. Research by psychologists shows that “smart people” do not need a lot of communication to feel happy; the higher the intelligence, the less the need for a large number of friendships. Maybe that’s why in 2017 Durov “purged” his friends on social networks and subscribers of his Youtube channel? “You shouldn’t be afraid to get rid of outdated ideas, connections, places of work.

Pavel does not talk on his cell phone (“it’s outdated, it’s too intrusive”), he admires Che Guevara and. He is a vegetarian and indifferent to drinking. Pavel is an active supporter of a healthy lifestyle (healthy lifestyle); during his work in VK, advertising of alcohol and cigarettes was prohibited, because he considers them the strongest drugs. He also classifies love as a drug, so he prefers not to fall in love.

His favorite film is the black-and-white drama “12 Angry Men” (1957), and the most important thing for him is self-development. The online authority speaks about his main aspiration this way:

I would describe my life’s work more broadly: helping people and improving the world around us

Pavel Durov's rules of success

On November 19, 2012, the biography of the “totem” “The Durov Code” was presented. The real story of VKontakte and its creator” by Nikolai Kononov, editor-in-chief of the Hopes&Fears publication. The rights to the film adaptation of the book about Durov were purchased by AR Films. It was previously reported (2012) that the film would be released at the end of 2017, but circumstances have changed a lot since then. In the preface to the publication, writer Yuri Saprykin noted: “The hero of this book does not fight for freedom - but affirms it by the very fact of his existence.”

Pavel Durov is a representative of a new generation of purposeful businessmen.

Not only his native publications write about him, but also BBC News, The Guardian, Silicon Allee, Fortune.

He belongs to the world “digital elite”, uniting brave and talented programmers. Pavel has a keen entrepreneurial vision. He is hardworking, determined, true to his principles and values ​​freedom very much. He is, of course, not a sociopath or a totem, but a person from whom there is something to learn. He has more than 20 tips for achieving success, some of them are philosophical, some are mundane and applied. His “golden recommendation” is as follows:

Do what you truly enjoy and you will be much happier.

Pavel Durov is the brightest representative of a new generation of purposeful and enterprising young people. Despite the mountains of garbage that fall on him on the Internet, we can safely say that Pavel Durov is interesting person, a personality worthy of admiration. Although the fame of his main project Vkontakte.ru brought him some fame, there is not much information about Pavel Durov himself, because he is clearly not a public person. Therefore, in this article we will try to present you with a more or less detailed biography of this young entrepreneur, bit by bit collecting everything that is on the Internet.

Success Story, Biography of Pavel Durov

Pavel Valerievich Durov was born on October 10, 1984 in Leningrad. His father is the famous philologist Valery Semyonovich Durov, the author of many scientific works. Pavel’s mother is also an educated woman and has two higher educations.

« I owe a lot to my parents: upbringing, origin, support. They set an example of optimism and hard work even in difficult times for our family..»

Childhood and teenage years of Pavel Durov

Durov began going to school in Turin, Italy, where his father worked for several years. Returning to St. Petersburg, he studied at a regular school, but not for long - he too often explained to the teachers that they were incompetent. But a whole group of people like Durov was recruited into the experimental classes of the Academic Gymnasium. Due to vision problems, he sat at the first desk, often alone, received high grades and was considered erudite - but he was overshadowed by the stars of the class, the winners of the Olympiads. Older brother Nikolai, a talented scientist, also won competitions in mathematics and computer science.

Durov learned to program and first changed the screensaver of all school computers from the Windows 95 logo to a photo of a computer science teacher with the caption “Must die.” The teacher denied him access to computers several times, but Durov broke the passwords each time. " You always had to be wary when communicating with him; it was unclear whether he was speaking sincerely or mocking you“recalls his classmate Alexey Dievsky.

Since then, Pavel has constantly improved his knowledge and skills in the field of programming. After the graduation party, Durov was asked where he sees himself in the future. He joked: “An Internet totem.”

After graduating from high school, Pavel entered the philological faculty of St. Petersburg State University, from which he graduated in 2006. As a student, Durov did not go with the flow, like most students, but used it, actively developing and improving.

Even before the appearance of his brainchild “VKontakte”, Pavel created several predecessor projects that helped him later create the best of the best. We are talking about student projects, the first of which was durov.com. The site had no commercial benefit, but helped unite students studying in different areas of the city, giving them a platform to exchange ideas and opinions.

Leaving Durov.com to exist in a free mode, he opened a university forum (spbgu.ru) and began to promote it. Having divided the portal into faculties' platforms, he initiated verbal battles, often argued with himself under different nicknames, and organized design and beauty competitions offline.

Soon, Durov applied for a Vladimir Potanin scholarship and participated in a role-playing game, during which those with excellent leadership qualities. « Pavel spoke quietly, but for some reason everyone fell silent and began to listen, - recalls Yuri Lifshits, winner of international mathematical Olympiads, who later worked at Yahoo. - Everyone there was bright, but even in simple situations, for example, when choosing a meeting place for the “Potanians,” his opinion was one of the decisive ones" Durov received a scholarship for three years in a row.

Meanwhile, 3,000 people a day were already visiting the forum, and the resource was acquiring social functions. Users blogged and rated each other up or down. Durov was cautious about monetization, not allowing the appearance of banners not related to education. By his last year, he firmly knew that he wanted to do his own projects, and not translate from English (as was stated in his diploma).

« When I looked at people who go to offices every day for routine work, I did not imagine such a scenario in my life, - Pavel Durov said in an interview with Forbes. - Managing Internet projects and organizing university events taught me independence and the idea that I have no direct superiors." By the way, Durov never took his diploma, not wanting to deal with the bureaucracy once again.

Creation of VKontakte

Vyacheslav Mirilashvili read an article in “Business Petersburg” and could not believe his eyes - his classmate Durov was praised as the creator of the St. Petersburg State University forum. At that time, Vyacheslav was studying at the American Tufts University and saw how social networks were gaining popularity. Mirilashvili found Durov’s address, and soon the friends were discussing the prospects of a social network for students. " The idea of ​​finding classmates and fellow students seemed relevant to Vyacheslav and me personally, Durov recalls. - Cause we might never meet again».

Had they started a little later, their chances of success would have been significantly lower. In the spring of 2006, the number of users on Russian-language social networks grew rapidly, but still amounted to thousands of people. Even the largest one, Odnoklassniki, did not reach a million users.

Vyacheslav did not have his own money to launch a social network. He borrowed them from one of the companies of his father, Mikhail Mirilashvili - owner of the Konti group (the largest St. Petersburg casinos) and the PetroMir group (shopping and entertainment centers). Mirilashvili Sr. was one of the most famous St. Petersburg businessmen of the 1990s; many called him a good friend of Vladimir Putin. In 2001, Mikhail Mirilashvili was arrested on charges of kidnapping the people who kidnapped his father, and at the time Pavel and Vyacheslav needed money, he was serving time.

Friends founded a company in which Mirilashvili Jr. remained in control, and his friend Lev Leviev and Durov were minority shareholders. However, the latter retained for himself a block of voting shares sufficient to cancel objectionable decisions. The fact that the brand could be associated with the name of Mirilashvili Sr. did not bother Durov.

On October 1, 2006, VKontakte LLC registered the domain vkontakte.ru, and from that day began the official history of the development of today's most popular social network in the Russian Federation and the CIS countries.

Pavel Durov had everything he needed in his hands - an understanding of the audience, a base of loyal forum visitors, programming experience, perseverance and perseverance. He started adapting the Facebook idea and adding his own features. Like Mark Zuckerberg, Durov wanted to attract more users and provide them with convenient services, but did not yet worry about monetization.

At first, the project was closed, and it was possible to join only by invitation. Registration was allowed only by first and last name. “Please register on this site! You will help me a lot!” - students of the capital's universities begged each other. In just a few days in November, the unknown VKontakte network attracted more than 2,000 users. The reason is a competition invented by Pavel Durov. The person who invited the most friends was given an iPod.

Three months later, free registration was introduced, and the ever-increasing number of participants in the social network forced the organizers to switch to more powerful servers and constantly improve software support for the network.

Further development of VKontakte

The main goal was to create a high-quality product that allows you to freely communicate with friends, regardless of location, i.e. always “be in contact.” But in addition to the ability to search for friends and make appointments with them, people were also attracted to the idea of ​​​​freely downloading music and videos.

Durov managed to collect a complete database of faculties of Russian universities and provide a search by year of graduation. And as a result, in the first year the VKontakte network received 3 million users. Due to the sharp increase in the number of users, server overload became a headache (it was a matter of life and death - constant freezing provoked an outflow of users from Friendster, the second largest social network in the world at that time). In addition, the number of DDos attacks on the site has increased, which forced us to develop and strengthen the protection of the social network. Durov was lucky - his brother Nikolai, who was working on his doctorate at the Max Planck Institute of Mathematics, managed to find time to optimize the load on the servers and work on site security.

However, the main problem was that VKontakte needed millions and millions of dollars to purchase new servers, support them and hire employees. The shareholders did not have their own funds and did not want to borrow any more, but meanwhile they received offers from Moscow investors to sell the business. " The temptation to sell everything for crazy money is quite great, - comments the creator of Odnoklassniki Albert Popkov. - It's a question of faith, how far will it go?».

Durova's faith was strong. Soon the DST Foundation (now Mail.ru Group) came knocking on VKontakte. " Our project was fundamentally different from other startups, as it grew exponentially, without advertising, Durov recalls. - Yuri Milner offered more than others and asked for less. At the same time, he himself took the initiative and came to us».

The founder of the DST fund, partner of the oligarch Alisher Usmanov and the most famous Russian Internet investor, Yuri Milner, is known for his ability to please the owner of a promising business idea. Another feature of this venture capitalist is non-interference in the affairs of the company in which he has invested (as long as things are going well). " Milner admired Durov all the time, said that he was a genius and so on, - notes a former top manager of the company in which DST invested. - It was then that Zuckerberg became his favorite, and then Durov reigned" One way or another, the parties bargained, and DST bought 24.99% of VKontakte for $16.3 million.

It gradually became clear that it was impossible to increase spending on growing video and photo hosting sites and at the same time delay the start of generating income. Durov had to compromise. VKontakte still refrained from advertising, but allowed increasing personal ratings using paid SMS. Later they began to sell virtual currency for real rubles. The “Gifts” service was also introduced to the public - pay and send a virtual postcard or item to a friend.

But the revenue of several million dollars did not cover the costs of the site, and in the summer of 2008 Durov signed the first advertising contract. Advertising appeared on the social network for the first time (the first banners were posted on the left and bottom of the page). A platform for gaming applications was also developed, allowing developers of these same applications to earn money for a certain percentage. Thus, we can conclude that the monetization of the project began precisely in 2008, when the number of VKontakte participants exceeded 20 million.

In 2011, the site underwent significant visual and functional changes. According to the latest news from Pavel, the engine code was completely rewritten, and various conveniences and usefulness were introduced: for example, pop-up message windows, convenient viewing of photos, the ability to add videos from well-known video hosting sites. All this once again proves the professionalism and concern of the development team for the project.

More than once, Durov and VKontakte LLC were sued for copyright infringement - posting films in the public domain on the website.

« This is 30 million criminals, and the accomplices are known! - Alexander Akopov, director of the Amedia film company, scolded VKontakte users. - You can't put everyone in prison, but you can put 10,000 in prison! The words of the copyright holder instantly spread across blogs and the media. Akopov got mad at Durov for actually maintaining the largest repository of pirated content in Russia. Approximately half of the video impressions on the RuNet occur on VKontakte... And this is a competitive advantage of Durov’s network.

The All-Russian State Television and Radio Company was the first to go to court. VGTRK demanded that several Internet platforms remove content belonging to it. Everyone agreed except VKontakte, and in the end the TV people lost to Durov. Nevertheless, the scandals continued.

« We came with a series from the ABC television company, for which we have exclusive rights to Russian territory, - an Internet entrepreneur who wished to remain anonymous said in an interview with Forbes magazine. - We looked at VKontakte, and there were 65,000 of our videos. And we have to remove all of this. And four days later another 30,000 appeared...“This is the main complaint of copyright holders - services like YouTube and Dailymotion have implemented a system for semi-automatic video deletion, but on VKontakte this is done only manually.

Durov considered the freedom to disseminate information as an organic feature of the Internet, but in order to appease copyright holders, he again had to make a deal with his own beliefs. VKontakte promised to develop more advanced filters, and in the meantime invited content factories to open and promote their pages. 20 Century Fox was the first to cave in to the “Corporation of Excellence,” but the rest are in no hurry to follow. For example, providers belonging to the Virgin Media group, owned by a famous billionaire Richard Branson, closed their clients’ access to the social network.

With such an approach to content, you can’t even dream of listing shares on Western stock exchanges. " It is unlikely that an IPO of VKontakte will be possible without resolving all issues regarding pirated content with copyright holders. I don't want to use the word "impossible", but this is too serious a question“, a representative of one of the international banks participating in the Yandex IPO said in an interview with Forbes.

This appears to have been one of the reasons for the cleansing campaign that Durov intensified in 2010. However, this purge did not reduce the influx of users. Today, VKontakte is ahead of the Russian-language segment of Facebook, Odnoklassniki and Moi Mir in terms of the number of users and traffic. The network receives more than half of its revenue from advertising - as already mentioned, Durov abandoned banners, relying on contextual ads. " VKontakte’s strategy is not about squeezing out ARPU(revenue per user), and in increasing the user base", he says. And it must be said that this strategy is yielding results; on September 10, 2012, VKontakte boasted another traffic record - 38.4 million users visited the resource’s pages per day. This is 50% more than the average daily traffic to the resource in September 2011.

Despite the high traffic numbers, the possibilities for growing the VKontakte user base are by no means endless. If Facebook in English can increase by billions of users, then Durov has already chosen three-quarters of the Russian-speaking audience.

Judging by the public statements of top managers, which have been heard since 2010, VKontakte will begin expansion into the European market in the near future. Here is what Paul says about this: “ My dream is to break the national inferiority complex by proving that products from Russia can be in massive demand all over the world" At the same time, he has repeatedly stated that there will be no merging with other social networks.

When Dmitry Grishin, CEO of Mail.ru Group (formerly the DST fund), announced in February 2011 that he was considering the possibility of merging VKontakte with Moi Mir and Odnoklassniki, the market was shocked by this news. Of course, many knew about the long-standing dream of the Mail.ru Group owners, but few believed that it would come true. " Strategically, it is right for us to acquire control of the social network VKontakte, or even better, to buy out 100%"- emphasized Grishin.

Durov immediately shot him down in his blog, saying that let the respected shareholder drive up the value of Mail.ru Group shares on the London Stock Exchange with such statements, but there is no talk of any merger.

« It may turn out that in order to achieve this goal and enter the world market, the VKontakte service will need to change beyond recognition, or our team will have to create a new product altogether. But sooner or later it will be done» , - Durov is convinced.

The first step in this direction has already been taken in 2011, the social network switched to the short domain vk.com, which is much easier to perceive by residents of other countries.

Now Pavel Durov is still involved in the project and controls its development, monetization and maintaining an acceptable level of quality for the social network for users. This young and goal-oriented person is an example not only for young people, but also for many other entrepreneurs.

Pavel Durov actively participates in sponsoring domestic student teams at the World Programming Championships.

On July 16, 2012, Pavel Durov awarded 60 thousand dollars to the best programmers in the world. They turned out to be schoolchildren from China. The first and second places of the Open World Programming Championship VK Cup, initiated by Pavel Durov, were taken by schoolchildren from China. They received $30 thousand and $20 thousand respectively. Third place went to a schoolboy from Belarus, he received $10 thousand.

“In the VK Cup competition, we wanted to select and reward the best developers in the world. We made no restrictions on the country of residence - and rewarded the best of the best algorithmists on the planet." , - said Pavel Durov.

In March 2012, it became known that the Wikimedia Foundation accepted a donation from Pavel Durov. Durov promised to donate $1 million for the development of Wikipedia in a live conference with the participation of the encyclopedia's management in January 2012. He explained his desire to support the encyclopedia financially by the fact that the Wikipedia project is very important for the Internet and is a global phenomenon.

Also, Pavel Durov, together with Yuri Milner, finances Internet startups. Their creators receive $25 thousand free of charge. At first glance, this is not such a large amount for a startup. Other startup support projects operating in Russia offer double or even quadruple the amount. However, they impose certain obligations on developers - from paying part of the income to providing management of the company. And Start Fellows grants are pure charity. That is, by providing money, Milner and Durov do not demand anything in return. The startup can continue to develop the project and attract other sponsors, or maybe, theoretically, simply sell the idea profitably and get money without ultimately releasing any startup.

Durov has no planes, cars or houses. He goes to work by metro and spends the night in a rented room measuring 18-20 square meters. In addition, the brilliant IT businessman completely gave up alcohol, meat and expensive clothes.

But Pavel travels a lot - “This year I was lucky enough to visit Italy, France, Germany, the USA, Israel, Austria, and Dubai. I would like to visit Switzerland during the May holidays. Also of interest are the medieval cities of Belgium. In general, I like the energy of Manhattan, and the atmosphere of the historical center of Vienna inspires me. But I love St. Petersburg more. It is the most beautiful city in Eastern Europe, both in terms of architecture and people.”

Pavel Durov adheres to libertarian economic and political views. Libertarianism is a political philosophy based on the prohibition of “aggressive violence,” that is, the prohibition of the use of force or the threat of force against another person, or his property, against the will of that person. The prohibition against aggressive violence is legal, not ethical. In other words, libertarianism implies that violations of this prohibition should be prosecuted.

In 2007, the newspaper “Business Petersburg” was recognized as one of the winners in the “Best Young Entrepreneurs of 2007” competition.

In 2011, Pavel Durov, as well as Arkady Volozh, CEO of Yandex, and Yuri Milner, co-owner of Mail.ru Group, became leaders of the TOP-30 key persons who most influenced the development of the Runet according to the Russian version of Forbes magazine.

When asked if you have an idol, Durov answers - « Eat. Founder and CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs. He is a brilliant organizer, designer and thinker. He gave the world many unique devices that made our lives better. It's amazing that we live at the same time as this man.»

Pavel Durov gave his first public interview at a specialized DLD conference at the beginning of 2012 in Munich.

Scandals associated with the name of Pavel Durov

In December 2011, in connection with protests against the falsification of the State Duma election results, the FSB suggested that Durov block five communities (four of which contain the phrase “against United Russia” in their names) and two meetings on the VKontakte network. Durov refused to do this. After this, he was summoned to give explanations to the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office.

Durov's act instantly turned him into an icon of the opposition. The FSB itself refused! But Pavel immediately regained his image as a man who does not care about politics and only cares about business.

« In fact, this was a proposal to voluntarily give a head start to all competing sites, squeezing out the active and passionate part of the audience on them,” he said in an open letter. “If foreign sites continue to exist in a free field, and Russian ones begin to be censored, RuNet can only expect a slow death. To ensure a playing field in which such requests were unthinkable, I drew the attention of the audience and other Internet companies, and then senior government officials, to the requests of the St. Petersburg FSB. In this exciting game of early December, we showed not so much courage as common sense. If you look at it, Western observers are now praising us for the same thing that they have always criticized us for - for the lack of strict censorship of user activity. My rapid transformation from “pirate” and “porn king” to defender of freedoms reflects only the inconsistency in their beliefs. While they apply different standards to different types of censorship, our position remains unchanged and boils down to one statement: it makes no sense to remove from one Internet site something that can be quickly found on others» .

Another scandal, which, unlike the previous one, did not have the best effect on Pavel Durov’s reputation, occurred on the city day, celebrated in St. Petersburg on May 28, 2012. From the window of his office, Pavel threw five thousand dollar bills attached to paper airplanes into the crowd gathered on the street. People threw themselves at this money, pressing and beating each other, while Durov filmed it all on video.

« Durov threw five thousand dollar bills out of the window and filmed how people threw the money. People from the crowd came out with broken noses, climbed onto traffic lights, and generally behaved like monkeys. Durov laughed heartily. Shame on you, Pavel...»

« Disgusting entertainment, to be honest.…»

« City Day, everything is positive. Surprisingly, there is no crush or crowd of drunken rioters. The embankment of the Griboyedov Canal, Pavel and Co. are looking out of the windows of the VK office, throwing 5000 bills begins and with an arrogant royal grin they watch as the crowd begins to tear each other apart in the hope of catching the “gifts” of the “overlord”! The real St. Petersburg circus named after Durov…»

« It’s a shame to our society in which such actions are allowed, human honor and dignity have ceased to exist as a concept…»

However, there were those who justified Paul:

« Durov, it seems to me, simply did not imagine that such bestiality was possible in the center of St. Petersburg on a city holiday, he really did not think that everything would go so far...».

« What prevented the “victims” from passing by and not going after these handouts? The grief is clearly not from the mind.) In my opinion, claims against Durov should be made last.…».

Durov himself, answering a question on Twitter about why he was scattering money, said the following: « Colleagues decided to support the holiday atmosphere in the form of a small action, but had to quickly stop - people began to go wild» .

However, no matter what motives drive the young millionaire, the act is not beautiful in any case, and one can only hope that Pavel realized the immorality of his behavior.

The VKontakte social network appeared at a time when the population was not spoiled by various options for communicating on the Internet. Thanks to the fast operation of the resource and viral marketing, the number of registered users grew rapidly. Like most success stories, it was based on a new idea (startup) and enthusiasm, and when the idea was recognized by society, it began to generate income.

The outstanding success of the young programmer is also easily explained by the statements about him by people who know him well and by the phrases that Pavel Durov himself uttered in his few interviews:

« Pavel, unlike most programmers, understood what schoolchildren and students want from life and how it looks in design, - explains Oleg Andreev, one of the VKontakte programmers - He knew how to look through the eyes of a person who has an old browser and slow Internet».

When asked why Pavel chose programming as his life’s work, Durov answered: « I would characterize my life’s work more broadly: helping people and improving the world around us. Programming became the area where I initially had the opportunity to help others the most, so I started doing it myself. As for studying at university, I think universities should pay more attention to basic, fundamental things. Applied training programs in innovative areas do not always keep up with progress. And fundamental things, such as mathematics, logic, theoretical linguistics, knowledge of foreign languages, always remain with us. It’s fortunate that old Russian universities take this very seriously.»

« The most important thing is to be able to distinguish the most important thing from everything else.»

« 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 much more interesting than consumption, and the internal state is incomparably more important than the external one. As soon as you make a cult out of money and exchange “to be” for “to seem,” you send yourself into voluntary slavery. Debt due to status tinsel, boring work with sad cowards, the need to lie and betray your world - these are just part of the price you pay for excessive desire for paper.»

« Remember: there are very few of you who can do something and not talk. Much smaller than it seems. No need to waste your time. Actions, not words, lead a person to success».

These motivating life principles were posted on Pavel Durov’s VKontakte page:

1. Find out what you really like. The golden rule is: do what gives you true pleasure, and then you will become much happier.
2. Give up the junk you eat, drink and smoke every day. No secrets or tricky diets - natural food, fruits, vegetables, water. There is no need to become a vegetarian and completely give up drinking - you just need to limit sugar, flour, coffee, alcohol and all plastic food as much as possible.
3. Learn foreign languages. This will expand the depth of perception of the world and open up unprecedented prospects for learning, development and career growth. There are 60 million Russian-speaking Internet users. There are a billion English speakers. The center of progress is now on the other side of the border, including the language border. Knowledge of English is no longer just a whim of intellectuals, but a vital necessity (Read - “ How to learn English on your own»).
4. Read books. An approximate circle is your professional field, history, natural science, personal growth, sociology, psychology, biographies, high-quality fiction. If you don’t have time to read because you’re driving, listen to audiobooks. The golden rule is to read/listen to at least one book a week. That's 50 books a year that will change your life.
5. Make the most of every weekend. Go to a museum, play sports, go out of town, skydive, visit relatives, go to a good movie. Expand your zone of contact with the world. How more new experiences you let it pass through yourself, the more interesting life will be, and the better you will understand things and phenomena.
6. Start keeping a blog or a regular diary. It doesn't matter what it's about. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have eloquence and you will have no more than 10 readers. The main thing is that on its pages you can think and reason. And if you just write regularly about what you love, readers will definitely come.
7. Set goals, record them on paper, in Word or on a blog. The main thing is that they are clear, understandable and measurable. If you set a goal, you can either achieve it or not. If you don’t set it, then there are no options for achieving it at all (Read - “How to set goals correctly”)
8. Learn to touch-type on the keyboard. Time is one of the few treasures you have, and you should be able to type almost as quickly as you can think. And you should think not about where the desired letter is, but about what you are writing.
9. Ride the time. Learn to manage your affairs so that they work almost without your participation. First, read David Allen - “How to Put Things in Order” or Gleb Arkhangelsky. Make decisions quickly, act immediately, don’t put it off for later. Either do everything or delegate it to someone (Read - “ How to delegate authority correctly»).
10. Give up computer games, aimless sitting on social networks and stupid Internet surfing. Minimize communication on social networks, leave one account. Destroy the television antenna in the apartment.
11. Stop reading the news. All the same, everyone around will talk about key events, and additional noise information does not lead to an improvement in the quality of decision-making.
12. Learn to get up early. The paradox is that in the early hours you always get more done than in the evening. If on a summer weekend you leave Moscow at 7 am, then by 10 you will already be in Yaroslavl. If you leave at 10, you will be there by lunchtime at best. 7 hours of sleep is enough for a person, subject to high-quality physical activity and normal nutrition.
13. Try to surround yourself with decent, honest, open, smart and successful people. We are our environment, from which we learn everything we know. Spend more time with people you respect and can learn from (especially your bosses).
14. Use every moment of time and every person to learn something new. If life brings you together with a professional in any field, try to understand what is the essence of his work, what are his motivations and goals. Learn to ask the right questions– even a taxi driver can become an invaluable source of information.
15. Start traveling change your environment more often. It doesn’t matter that there is no money for Argentina and New Zealand - the quality of your vacation is not related to the money spent. When you see how diverse the world is, you will stop focusing on the space around you, and you will become more tolerant, calmer and wiser.
16. Buy a camera and try to capture the beauty of the world. When you succeed, you will remember your travels not only by vague impressions, but also by the beautiful photographs that you brought with you. As an alternative, try drawing, singing, dancing, sculpting, designing. That is, do something that will make you look at the world with different eyes.
17. Do some sports. You don’t have to go to a fitness club where jocks, pick-up artists, Balzac ladies and freaks hang out. Yoga, rock climbing, cycling, horizontal bar, parallel bars, football, running, plyometrics, swimming, functional training are the best friends of a person who wants to tone the body and get a surge of endorphins. And forget about the elevator.
18. Do unusual things. Go somewhere you’ve never been, take a different route to work, figure out a problem you know nothing about. Get out of your “comfort zone”, expand your knowledge and horizons. Rearrange the furniture at home, change appearance, hairstyle, image.
19. Invest. Ideally, you should invest part of your income every month, because a rich person is not the one who earns a lot, but the one who invests a lot. Try to invest in assets, minimize liabilities and control expenses (Read - “ Investment rules - advice for a novice investor»)
20. Get rid of the junk. Throw it all away unnecessary and unnecessary things that you haven't worn or used in the last year. Leave only what you like and need. It's a shame to throw it away - give it away.
21. Give more than you take. Share knowledge, experience and ideas. A person who not only takes, but also shares, is incredibly attractive. Surely you can do something that others really want to learn.
22. Accept the world as it is. Give up value judgments, accept all phenomena as neutral. And even better – as unequivocally positive.
23. Forget about what happened in the past. It has nothing to do with the future. Take with you from there only experience, knowledge, good relationships and positive impressions.
24. Don't be afraid. There are no insurmountable obstacles, and all doubts live only in your head. You don't have to be a warrior, you just need to see the goal, avoid obstacles and know that you will achieve it without a single chance of failure.
25. The last one is the first one. Do what you like. Learn. Teach. Develop yourself. Change yourself from within.

“The Durov Code” - a biography book about Pavel Durov

In November 2012, “The Durov Code”, a book by writer and journalist Nikolai Kononov, goes on sale, in which he will tell previously unknown details about how 28-year-old Pavel Durov became one of the most successful Russian businessmen in just a few years.

« He is an eternal contrarian, a contrarian, a 100% egoist and a loner. Hereditary philologist from a good family. He has very gifted parents, a brilliant older brother, who works as the technical director of VKontakte and makes sure that this whole wildly loaded system does not crash. All the methods and ways to store information and distribute it were invented by his brother, this is absolute know-how. Developer conferences, where they talk about how they store information, gather fans, much like concerts of stadium bands“- says the author of the book in one of the interviews.

According to Nikolai Kononov, he began writing a book about Pavel Durov when he worked at Forbes. The journalist found the writer’s St. Petersburg acquaintances and began collecting biographical information about him, and then it took him some time to persuade Durov to provide information about himself. The decisive argument in his favor as a biographer was not only the recommendations of mutual acquaintances, but also the fact that he assured Pavel that he was interested not so much in his condition as in his path as an entrepreneur.

In his book about Pavel Durov, Nikolai Kononov promises to dispel the myths about the mafia sources of funding for VKontakte and talk in detail about the role of Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and Pavel Durov’s older brother, who always remains in his shadow, in the creation of the social network. The book will also contain many other interesting episodes: for example, a story about Pavel Durov’s meeting with Mark Zuckerberg in Silicon Valley, episodes from his childhood in Italy and more. Nikolai Kononov also announced negotiations with a number of producers who showed interest in filming a film based on the book.

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Pavel Valerievich Durov- Russian programmer, dollar billionaire, one of the creators of the social network VKontakte and the company of the same name, the cross-platform messenger Telegram and other projects. Former General Director of VKontakte (2006-2014).

Place of Birth. Education. Pavel Durov was born in Leningrad on October 10, 1984 into an intelligent family. Father - Doctor of Philology Valery Semyonovich Durov, author of many scientific works, has headed the Department of Classical Philology of the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University since 1992. He went to the first grade of school while in Turin, where his father worked for several years. Returning to his hometown, Pavel briefly studied at a regular school and entered the experimental classes of the Academic Gymnasium (now Mednikov’s Academic Classes), which provides in-depth study of all subjects, including four foreign languages. At the age of 11, he first became interested in programming.

In 2001 he graduated from the Academic Gymnasium with honors. In 2002, Pavel entered the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University, majoring in English Philology and Translation. For his academic achievements and contribution to student life at the university, he was awarded a scholarship from the government of the Russian Federation, and then a scholarship from the President of the Russian Federation. Pavel was a three-time winner of the Potanin Scholarship, and was also one of a select number of St. Petersburg State University students with the highest level of intelligence and leadership abilities. He won competitions in computer science, linguistics and design, and organized university-wide events. Pavel graduated from the university in 2006 with honors (which he never took).

In contact with. Even while studying at St. Petersburg State University, Pavel created non-profit Internet projects designed to improve the quality of social and scientific life of the university. These projects were the sites Durov.com and Spbgu.ru.

But by the summer of 2006, he realized that his student websites, despite all their popularity, were ineffective in uniting students, since many hid their names under nicknames and their real faces under avatars: students could communicate with each other online without even realizing it. that they study in the same group. Then he started looking for another form for the student website. Later, Pavel’s old friend, who returned from the USA after studying, introduced him to an Internet project for American university students - Facebook, where users posted their real names and photographs on their 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 on VKontakte, since, according to him, "sooner or later we all become graduates." He started implementing it immediately after graduating from university.

Pavel and his brother, Nikolai Durov, founded the limited liability company VKontakte 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. 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 on the Runet; in 2008, the network was monetized, and the number of users exceeded 20 million.

As of 2011, Durov, with a fortune of 7.9 billion rubles, occupied 350th place in the ranking of Russian billionaires.

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. For this, according to Durov, he had to sacrifice a lot, including his share of VKontakte. According to him, Russia’s jurisdiction does not extend to Ukrainian users of the social network VKontakte and dissemination of data from Ukrainian users would not only be a violation of the law, but also a crime against millions of users from Ukraine.

In January 2014, it became known that Pavel Durov sold his stake (12%) in the VKontakte company to the CEO of MegaFon, Ivan Tavrin. In March, Mail.Ru Group bought this share from Ivan Tavrin, thus concentrating 52% of the shares of VKontakte; 48% belongs to the United Capital Partners fund.

On April 21, 2014, Durov announced that he was fired from his position as CEO of the social network. The next day, he announced that he had left Russia, did not intend to return, and was going to create a new mobile social network. According to the founder of VKontakte, “at the moment the country [Russia] is not compatible with doing business on the Internet.”

Durov constantly moves from country to country, never staying in one for more than two or three weeks. Together with him in Paris , Singapore and his team of programmers, with whom he develops the messenger, travels to other cities Telegram . 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 citizen of the world." In addition to the Russian one, he has a passport from the state of Saint Kitts and Nevis , he received this passport after investing in the country's economy.

Telegram. On August 14, 2013, the first Telegram client for iOS devices was introduced. The application is positioned as protected from surveillance by intelligence agencies and the possibility of gaining illegal access to the data of its users. The service is built on MTProto correspondence encryption technology, developed by Pavel’s brother Nikolai.

The number of monthly active users of the service as of the end of March 2018 is more than 200 million people. In August 2017, in his Telegram channel, Pavel Durov reported that the number of users was increasing by more than 600 thousand daily.

On April 16, 2018, Roskomnadzor began restricting access to Telegram in Russia.

On April 18, 2018, Russian media reported the true reason for blocking Telegram.

Views. Pavel Durov adheres to libertarian political views and is also a vegetarian. He advocates reform of the Russian educational system; abolition of taxes in the field of information; abolition of the visa system, registration and military conscription; reduction of customs duties; granting regions full autonomy; and also for the openness of jury trials. He is inspired by Ernesto Che Guevara and Steve Jobs, and according to his religious beliefs, he is, according to some sources, a Pastafarian, according to others, a supporter of the Zen school.

On October 10, 2017, on his birthday, Pavel Durov spoke about seven things that he gave up many years ago and which, in his opinion, negatively affect consciousness: alcohol; animal meat; tablets and any pharmaceutical products; nicotine and other drugs; coffee, black and green tea, energy drinks; fast food, sugar, carbonated drinks; television and its analogues.

Criticism and recognition. Durov is called Russian in the media , and is also often criticized for his eccentric antics and statements.

State. In 2016 and 2017, he was included in the Forbes list of 200 richest businessmen in Russia. In 2018, the magazine estimated his net worth at $1.7 billion.

Family. Father - Doctor of Philology Valery Semenovich Durov (born July 13, 1945), author of many scientific works, since 1992 heads the department of classical philology of the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University.

Mother - Albina Aleksandrovna Durova (born April 3, 1951) taught at St. Petersburg State University.

Brother - Nikolay (born November 21, 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 its foundation until mid-2013 he was the technical director In contact with.

Pavel Valerievich Durov- Russian businessman, creator of the social network Vkontakte (VK) and the cross-platform messenger Telegram. During his student years, Pavel Durov was a laureate of scholarships from the President of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation, a three-time laureate Potaninskaya scholarships. Currently, Pavel Valerievich is a ruble billionaire.

Childhood and education of Pavel Durov

Father - Valery Semenovich Durov(b. 1945) - Doctor of Philology. Valery Durov headed the Department of Classical Philology of the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University (from 1992 to 2013).

Mother - Albina Alexandrovna Durova(b. 1951) - taught at St. Petersburg State University, now retired.

Older brother - Nikolai Valerievich Durov(b. 1980) - Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. During his student years, he twice became the absolute world champion in programming among students. Nikolay Durov was the technical director of VKontakte LLC.

Pavel's grandfather Semyon Petrovich Tulyakov(b. 1913), participated in the Great Patriotic War. He was wounded three times. Introduced to the Order of the Red Star.

Pavel Durov began receiving his education in Italy, going to school in Turin, where his father worked for several years. When the Durovs returned home, Pavel became a student at the Academic Gymnasium at St. Petersburg State University. Pavel Durov studied in a class with in-depth study of foreign languages. In addition to English, French, German, Spanish and Italian, he speaks Latin and Persian.

The early years of Pavel Durov (Photo: lukomore.org/Global Look Press)

Pavel grew up as a fairly active child. He became interested in computers early; at the age of 11, Durov became interested in programming and virtual computer projects.

Friends talked about the “innocent childhood fun” of the future creator of VKontakte. For example, Pavel changed the screensavers on all computers in the computer science classroom and easily hacked teachers’ passwords. His love for programming, apparently, did not bring him closer to the computer science teacher, whose photo with the caption “Must die” young Durov placed on the screensavers of school computers.

Pavel Durov graduated from high school with honors and, despite his interest in programming, decided to get a humanities education by enrolling in the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University (specialty “English Philology and Translation”).

Career of Pavel Durov

Pavel Durov created a library for searching important materials and abstracts at the university to simplify the exchange of messages and useful information.

However, in the end, having figured out Facebook, Pavel said that it was a “sinking ship.” He even called the American social network a “stronghold of pedoliberals,” and in May 2012, on his Twitter account, he ironically called it a “cheap hack.”

Pavel Durov was involved in the development of VKontakte together with his brother Nikolai. The first official user registered on the social network in October 2006. Initially, the social network was called “Students.ru”. But it was soon changed to a more acceptable one - “VKontakte”, and over time the abbreviation “VK” took root.

In 2008, the number of registered VKontakte users exceeded 20 million, and Pavel Durov became a real legend, who was compared to the creator of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg.

On April 1, 2014, the founder of the social network VKontakte, Pavel Durov, announced that he was leaving his leadership position. According to Durov, the reason for his departure was changes in the composition of the company's shareholders, which led to a restriction of the CEO's freedom of action. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to defend the principles that were once the basis of our social network,” Durov wrote on his page.

Durov noted that, as a founder, he will continue to participate in the life of the social network, however, “formal posts in the new conditions are not interesting to me,” the media quoted him as saying.

On April 21, 2014, VKontakte LLC announced the dismissal of Pavel Durov from the post of general director of the social network in connection with his earlier resignation letter. Durov did not recognize his resignation as legal, since he withdrew his statement.

In his 2016 interview, Pavel Durov published ten lessons he learned in the process of creating VKontakte. According to him, “VK” was made quickly and efficiently, which put it above its competitors. Also, according to Durov, you need to pay attention to pleasant little things, since even insignificant but well-thought-out details “bring new loyal users.”

Durov admitted that when creating the site, he listened to the opinions of “older and wiser people,” but was only wasting time, since “you should only listen to your intuition.” He noted that the VKontakte staff was small, but consisted of talented and motivated people: “such a team is more effective than an army of mercenaries working for a salary.”

According to Forbes, Pavel Durov sold his stake in VKontakte to the CEO of Megafon Ivan Tavrin.

Emigration of Pavel Durov

Pavel Durov received citizenship of Saint Kitts and Nevis, but does not live there. The passport of this small state allows Durov to travel around the world freely. Durov constantly moves from country to country, never staying in one for more than two or three weeks. His team of programmers travels with him to Paris, Singapore and other cities, with whom he develops the Telegram messenger. Pavel reported that he was not a fan of the idea of ​​the state. “I am very happy now, living without any property and considering myself a citizen of the world.”

Photo: lukomore. org/Global Look Press

Pavel received a passport from the state of Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2014 after investing in the country’s economy; the news wrote that Durov donated 250 thousand dollars to the Sugar Industry Diversification Fund; a donation in this amount entitles him to automatic citizenship. Before this, the former general director of VKontakte conducted a survey on his Facebook page about which country to choose as a new place of residence.

Conflict around Telegram

After leaving Vkontakte, Pavel Durov did not stop developing new projects. Back in 2013, Durov introduced the Telegram messenger. The peculiarity of Durov’s project was the use of special correspondence encryption technology, which was invented by Nikolai Durov, and created a truly secure communication channel.

Telegram instant messaging system (Photo: Sergey Konkov/TASS)

Government representatives several times proposed blocking Telegram if it did not change its privacy policy, but Pavel remained adamant and officially stated that the messenger did not and would not give out users’ personal data.

Advisor to the President of Russia on Internet development issues German Klimenko believes that the creator of the Telegram messenger Pavel Durov adheres to an “anarchic position” in his dispute with Roskomnadzor.

According to Klimenko, terrorists can use various messengers when planning terrorist attacks, but the management of all these messengers, unlike Durov, is ready for dialogue with the Russian authorities, TASS writes.

In April 2017, the creator of the Telegram messenger Pavel Durov spoke about what innovations users should expect in the near future. Thus, it became known that through the messenger it will be possible to make commission-free financial transactions and make video calls. Payments will be made using the Stripe payment system.

June 23, 2017 head of Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov stated that the department will block the work of Telegram in Russia if its creators do not send the data necessary for the official inclusion of the messenger in the register of information dissemination organizers. In turn, Pavel Durov promised his users that Telegram would not give out their personal data to any of the world’s intelligence agencies.

On April 16, providers in Russia began blocking access to the Telegram messenger. Free Press reported that Alexander Zharov, the head of Roskomnadzor, said that on behalf of the department requests would be sent to the App Store and Google Play application stores demanding that the Telegram messenger be removed.

According to Durov, the decision to block the Telegram messenger will reduce Russia’s national security, since some of the personal data of Russians will go to the US-controlled WhatsApp and Facebook messengers. At the same time, Durov noted that the terrorist threat in Russia will remain at the same level, since “extremists will continue to use encrypted communication channels - in other instant messengers, or through VPN.”

“The quality of life of 15 million Russians will worsen, as Telegram without a VPN may be inaccessible at times. We consider the decision to block unconstitutional and will continue to defend the right to privacy of Russians’ correspondence,” the owner of Telegram summarized, as reported in the news. Durov also said that he would provide grants to everyone who would support services that can be used to bypass the blocking of the messenger.

Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that Vladimir Putin is aware of the situation with the blocking of the Telegram messenger in the country.

“The question is rather a government one, but, of course, the president is aware of the decision made by the court to block,” RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.

Personal life of Pavel Durov

Durov adheres to libertarian political views. He supports vegetarianism and, according to some reports, has even become a vegan. In addition, Pavel does not drink alcohol and loves to travel.

Pavel is well-mannered, but unsociable and does not like to talk about his personal life. Nevertheless, photos of Durov often appeared on the Internet with various models.

In the photo: Alena Shishkova and Vika Odintcova (Photo: instagram.com/missalena.92 / instagram.com/viki_odintcova)

Pavel Durov was credited with having a relationship with Alena Shishkova And Vika Odintsova, according to his biography on the 24-SMI website, you can also often find references to Durov’s common-law wife Daria Bondarenko, who allegedly gave birth to Pavel two children. But Durov does not publish photos with this woman and children on Instagram and other social networks, keeping his personal life secret. One can only speculate about who Pavel Durov is dating from the tabloid and yellow press news.

In the photo: Russian entrepreneur, programmer, billionaire, one of the creators of the social network VKontakte and the company of the same name; creator of the cross-platform Telegram messenger Pavel Durov (third from right) (Photo: lukomore.org/Global Look Press)

Pavel is inspired 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.

In 2011, Pavel was ranked third in the Forbes list of “The 9 Most Unusual Russian Businessmen - Extravagant, Eccentrics and Eccentrics” for publishing a photo in which he made an obscene gesture in response to the efforts of a major shareholder of VKontakte - Mail.ru Group - to absorb this company. social network.

The scandal involving the throwing of banknotes folded in the form of paper airplanes from the window of the VKontakte central office caused no less resonance. Durov and VKontakte top managers threw about $2,000 out the window, according to his biography on Wikipedia. Pavel, commenting on the story in an interview, noted that “he threw money out of the window and was glad to see both the pandemonium and the reaction of people not because that he wanted to prove his wealth and importance, but because he saw surprise and joy on the faces of the townspeople.”

Durov’s tweet on May 9, 2012, which said that “67 years ago, Stalin defended Hitler’s right to repress the population of the USSR,” caused a great resonance. This quote caused outrage among many, Nikolay Valuev announced that he was closing his accounts on VKontakte. Writer Sergey Minaev called Durov scum.

Press Secretary of VKontakte Vladislav Tsyplukhin, commenting on the scandalous news, said that Durov respects Victory Day, and his entry is connected with the fact that “his grandfather went through the whole war,” “and in gratitude he was repressed without trial.”

Pavel Durov actively uses Instagram and posts his photos. If fans cannot find photos of his girls there, then Durov himself, in particular, is a lot half naked on Instagram. Most often, Durov poses for photos in a black T-shirt. He also posts pictures from his numerous travels; recently on Instagram he posted an image of a seaplane in the Maldives, captioning the photo “seaplane - more freedom.”

In August, the founder of VKontakte and the Telegram messenger announced the launch of the #PutinShirtlessChallenge flash mob (roughly translated as “Take off your shirt like Putin”). Pavel Durov invited users to publish their photos with a naked torso “in response” to numerous photographs of the shirtless President of Russia. Durov himself accompanied the post with his photo without a T-shirt, taken, judging by the geolocation, in the city of Ubud on the island of Bali.

“My Instagram has had to seriously take things to the next level to keep up with the growing competition of shirtless Mr. Putin. If you're Russian, you need to join the #PutinShirtlessChallenge (or face oblivion). Putin’s two rules are no photoshop and no pumping [multiple repetitions of the exercise to make the muscles look more prominent]. Otherwise, you are not an “alpha,” Durov signed the photo.