Photo: http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/561657/

Biography of Pavel Durov

He went to first grade at school in Turin, where his father worked for several years.

Returning to his hometown and studying a little at a regular school, Pavel 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.

There he had a reputation as an erudite and sat at the first desk due to vision problems.

At the age of 11, he first became interested in programming.

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.

Pavel graduated from the university in 2006 with honors (which he never took). A year earlier, he completed his professional training at the Faculty of Military Training of St. Petersburg State University with a specialization in Propaganda and Psychological Warfare. During his studies at this faculty, Pavel served as a platoon commander at the Faculty of Philology, and upon graduation received the rank of reserve lieutenant.

Projects of Pavel Durov

While studying at the university, Pavel created non-profit Internet projects designed to improve the quality of social and scientific life of the university. These are the sites Durov.com - an electronic library of university abstracts, as well as a place for the exchange of ideas and opinions of students and Spbgu.ru - a university forum, where Pavel often initiated various discussions, in which, using different accounts, he argued with himself.

By the summer of 2006, he realized that his student websites, while popular, 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 suspecting that 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, where users posted their real names and photographs in their profiles. Durov decided to introduce a similar website concept in Russia, that is, real people under real names.

The beginning of VKontakte

Pavel began implementing this project immediately after graduating from university.

He, together with 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. But at the end of the year registration became free.

Within a few days, the network attracted more than 2,000 users; the reason is a competition - an iPod for whoever invites the most friends.

Pavel repeatedly received offers to buy his product, but he rejected them. Instead, the programmer attracted investors to his project. VKontakte was developing 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.

In 2010, Pavel’s company moved into the Singer house, which is located on Nevsky Prospekt, opposite the Kazan Cathedral.

In December 2011, Pavel and the head of the DST Global fund, Yuri Milner, launched the Start Fellows charity project, which is aimed at financing startups selected on a competitive basis.

On January 24, 2012, at the Digital Life Design (DLD) conference in Munich, during a joint presentation with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Pavel promised to donate one million dollars to the online encyclopedia.

In March, the transfer of the promised amount to the Wikimedia Foundation account was confirmed.

Pavel Durov left Russia

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.

On April 22, 2014, it became known that Pavel Durov had gone abroad and had no intention of returning to Russia. Pavel travels the world with his team of programmers and works on creating the Telegram messenger.

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

On April 21, Pavel Durov resigned from the post of general director of VKontakte LLC, explaining this by reducing the available freedom of action.

Awards of Pavel Durov

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.

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.

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

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

"Durov Code"

On November 19, 2012, the publishing house Mann, Ivanov and Ferber published Nikolai Kononov’s book “The Durov Code,” which describes the formation of the VKontakte social network. The book is based on biographical facts and interviews with Pavel Durov.

Durov Pavel VK

Id of Pavel Durov “Vkontakte”: http://vk.com/durov

Contacts of Pavel Durov

Twitter: https://twitter.com/durov

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/durov

Instagram: https://instagram.com/durov/

In 2006, he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University with a degree in English Philology and Translation with honors (which he still hasn’t taken). A year earlier, he completed professional training at the Faculty of Military Education of St. Petersburg State University with a specialization in Propaganda and Psychological Warfare, after which he received the rank of reserve lieutenant. Immediately after graduating from university, he created VKontakte, currently the largest social network in Russia. As of 2011, Durov, with a fortune of 7.9 billion rubles, occupied 350th place in the ranking of Russian billionaires.

Mother - Albina Aleksandrovna Durova.

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

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

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

Biography

When I looked at people who commute to offices every day for routine work, I could not imagine such a scenario in my life. Managing Internet projects and organizing university events taught me independence and the idea that I had no direct superiors.

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. The first project is an electronic library of university abstracts, as well as a place for students to exchange ideas and opinions; the second is the university forum, where Pavel often initiated various discussions, in which, using different accounts, he argued with himself. But by the summer of 2006, he realized that his student 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 site concept in Russia, that is, real people under real names. The original name of the future project - “Student.ru” - was replaced by Pavel with “VKontakte”, since, according to him, “sooner or later we all become graduates.” He began implementation 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. Within a few days, the network attracted more than 2,000 users; the reason is a competition - an iPod for whoever invites the most friends. The rapidly growing number of users forced the creators to change servers and improve software support for the network. Pavel repeatedly received offers to buy his product, but he rejected them. Instead, the programmer attracted investors to his project. VKontakte was developing 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. In 2010, Pavel’s company moved into the Singer house, which is located on Nevsky Prospekt, opposite the Kazan Cathedral.

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

On April 5, 2013, it was reported that while driving a car, Durov turned left from Sadovaya Street to the embankment of the Moika River, violating the requirements of the road sign. The traffic police officer who noticed the offense tried to stop the car. The driver did not comply with the requirement, continuing to drive, and as a result hit the employee, causing him bruises and abrasions. Initially, the VKontakte press service denied Pavel’s involvement in the incident, pointing out that their general director did not have a car. In addition, the car itself belonged to the vice-president of the company Ilya Perekopsky. But in June, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg proved that it was Durov who was driving. Immediately after the incident, a criminal case was opened against Pavel under an article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (use of violence against a representative of authority), which, after an investigation, was closed in June 2013, and the offense itself fell under the article of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (disobedience to a lawful order of a police officer), so how the investigation did not collect sufficient evidence of the deliberate use of violence. In September 2013, it became known that the criminal case was returned for further investigation in order to establish the presence or absence of criminal intent in the actions of Pavel Durov. Evidence indicating that Durov’s actions were deliberate and aimed at using violence against the police officer was again not found by investigators, and at the beginning of 2014 the criminal case was again discontinued.

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

Having exhausted all possibilities for a reasonable agreement, we transfer disputed cases on “VK” to legal companies. The brief essence of our complaints is that Pavel Durov and representatives of Mail.ru Group systematically made and continue to make decisions not in the best interests of VK...

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

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

In contact with

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

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

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

What you own sooner or later begins to own you.

I've been actively disposing of my possessions over the last few years, giving away and selling everything I owned, from furniture and belongings to real estate and companies. To achieve the ideal, all I had to do was get rid of the largest part of my property - a 12% share of VKontakte. I am glad that not so long ago I achieved this goal by selling my share of VKontakte to my friend Ivan Tavrin.

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

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

Telegram

On August 14, 2013, the first Telegram client was introduced. In November, the program had, according to TJournal, about 1 million installations. In an interview with The New York Times, Pavel said that the initial idea for the application came to him back in 2011, when special forces came to his door. When the latter finally left, Durov immediately wrote to his brother Nikolai. It was then that he realized that he had no safe way to communicate with his brother. The service is built on MTProto correspondence encryption technology, developed by Pavel’s brother Nikolai.

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

Emigration

On April 16, Pavel Durov announced that on December 13, 2013, the FSB demanded that the network’s management hand over personal information of the organizers of the Euromaidan groups, to which he refused. In December, a deal was made to sell a stake in the company. According to him, Russian jurisdiction does not extend to Ukrainian users of the VKontakte social network. Durov also noted that distributing data from Ukrainian users would not only be a violation of the law, but also a crime against millions of users from Ukraine.

On April 22, 2014, it became known that Pavel Durov had gone abroad and had no intention of returning to Russia. He said this in an interview with TechCrunch. He noted: “Unfortunately, it is impossible to run an Internet business in this country.”

The founder of VKontakte also said that in the near future he plans to focus on creating a mobile social network. Later, the UCP fund, which at that time owned 48% of the shares of VKontakte, stated that it did not consider Pavel Durov’s resignation from the post of general director a fait accompli. UCP partner Yuri Kachuro believed that the executive director of VKontakte exceeded his authority and did not discuss such a serious decision with the board of directors.

Durov constantly moves from country to country, 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. “Now I am very happy, living without any property and considering myself a citizen of the world.” In addition to the Russian one, he has a passport from the state of Saint Kitts and Nevis; he received this passport after investing in the country’s economy.

Views and beliefs

Pavel Durov holds 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 the jury. 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.

Relationship to Facebook

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

Business style

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

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

Criticism and recognition

Some Western media called Pavel the Russian Mark Zuckerberg. In 2011, Pavel was in third place on the list Forbes“9 of the most unusual Russian businessmen - extravagant, eccentrics and eccentrics” for publishing a photograph in which he demonstrates an obscene gesture in response to the efforts of a major shareholder of VKontakte - Mail.ru Group - to absorb this social network. The same magazine published a list of “30 most notable figures in Russian Internet business,” where Pavel was in seventh place. Durov was in 42nd place in the list of the most cited bloggers in the Russian media in the first half of 2012, according to a study by the Medialogia company. One of the creators of VKontakte, Oleg Andreev, explained the reason for the success of the social network in this way: “Pavel, unlike most programmers, understood what schoolchildren and students want from life, and how it looks in design. He knew how to look through the eyes of a person who has an old browser and a slow Internet."

Durov’s action of throwing airplanes with banknotes was harshly criticized by popular bloggers and journalists. Thus, Vladimir Solovyov called this act “a merchant’s whim,” and Durov himself a “underdog.” Solovyov was supported by the current

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 communicate with him warily; 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 online 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 the TV series ABC, 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 lawless people. The embankment of the Griboyedov Canal, Pavel and Co. are looking out of the windows of the VK office, the throwing of 5,000 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 pity 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.

If you find an error, please highlight a piece of text and click Ctrl+Enter.

In 2006, a then unknown graduate of St. Petersburg State University, Pavel Durov, came up with 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 USA 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 Xiaonei. 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.

Pavel Valerievich Durov (born October 10, 1984, Leningrad, USSR) - Russian entrepreneur, programmer, ruble billionaire, one of the creators of the social network “VKontakte” and the company of the same name; creator of the cross-platform messenger Telegram. Former General Director of VKontakte (2006-2014). During his student years, he was a laureate of scholarships from the President of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation, a three-time laureate of the Potanin Scholarship.

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

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

In 2014, he left Russia and announced that he had no plans to return.

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

Family

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

Mother - Albina Aleksandrovna Durova.

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

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

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

Biography

Pavel Durov was born in Leningrad on October 10, 1984 into an intelligent family. 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. There he had a reputation as an erudite and sat at the first desk due to vision problems.

At the age of 11, he first became interested in programming. His trick is known when he changed the screensaver of all school computers to a photo of a computer science teacher with the caption “Must die” (Russian: Must die). Durov was deprived of access to computers, but he hacked passwords to them. In 2001 he graduated from the Academic Gymnasium with honors. In 2002, Pavel entered the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University, 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.

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

Pavel 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). A year earlier, he completed his professional training at the Faculty of Military Training of St. Petersburg State University with a specialization in Propaganda and Psychological Warfare. During his studies at this faculty, Pavel served as a platoon commander at the Faculty of Philology, and upon graduation received the rank of reserve lieutenant.

When I looked at people who commute to offices every day for routine work, I could not imagine such a scenario in my life. Managing Internet projects and organizing university events taught me independence and the idea that I had no direct superiors.

Pavel Durov

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. The first project is an electronic library of university abstracts, as well as a place for students to exchange ideas and opinions; the second is the university forum, where Pavel often initiated various discussions, in which, using different accounts, he argued with himself.

But by the summer of 2006, he realized that his student 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 with “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. Within a few days, the network attracted more than 2,000 users; the reason is a competition - an iPod for whoever invites the most friends. The rapidly growing number of users forced the creators to change servers and improve software support for the network. Pavel repeatedly received offers to buy his product, but he rejected them. Instead, the programmer attracted investors to his project. VKontakte was developing 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. In 2010, Pavel’s company moved into the Singer house, which is located on Nevsky Prospekt, opposite the Kazan Cathedral.

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

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

On April 5, 2013, it was reported that while driving a car, Durov turned left from Sadovaya Street to the Moika River embankment, violating the requirements of the road sign. The traffic police officer who noticed the offense tried to stop the car. The driver did not comply with the requirement, continuing to drive, and as a result hit an employee, causing him bruises and abrasions. Initially, the VKontakte press service denied Pavel’s involvement in the incident, pointing out that their general director did not have a car. In addition, the car itself belonged to the vice-president of the company, Ilya Perekopsky. But in June, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg proved that it was Durov who was driving. Immediately after the incident, a criminal case was opened against Pavel under Article 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (use of violence against a representative of the authorities), which after an investigation was closed in June 2013, and the offense itself fell under Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (disobedience to a lawful order of a police officer) , since the investigation did not collect sufficient evidence of the deliberate use of violence.

In September 2013, it became known that the criminal case was returned for further investigation in order to establish the presence or absence of criminal intent in the actions of Pavel Durov. Evidence indicating that Durov’s actions were deliberate and aimed at using violence against the police officer was again not found by investigators, and at the beginning of 2014 the criminal case was again discontinued.

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

Having exhausted all possibilities for a reasonable agreement, we transfer disputed cases on “VK” to legal companies. The brief essence of our complaints is that Pavel Durov and representatives of Mail.ru Group systematically made and continue to make decisions not in the best interests of VK...

UCP Partner Yuri Kachuro

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

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

Ivan Streshinsky

In contact with

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

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

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

What you own sooner or later begins to own you.

I've been actively disposing of my possessions over the last few years, giving away and selling everything I owned, from furniture and belongings to real estate and companies. To achieve the ideal, all I had to do was get rid of the largest part of my property - a 12% share of VKontakte. I am glad that not so long ago I achieved this goal by selling my share of VKontakte to my friend Ivan Tavrin.

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

Pavel Durov

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

Telegram

On August 14, 2013, the first Telegram client was introduced. In November, the program had, according to TJournal, about 1 million installations. In an interview with The New York Times, Pavel said that the initial idea for the app came to him back in 2011, when special forces came to his door. When the latter finally left, Durov immediately wrote to his brother Nikolai. It was then that he realized that he had no safe way to communicate with his brother. The service is built on MTProto correspondence encryption technology, developed by Pavel’s brother Nikolai.

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

Emigration

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

On April 22, 2014, it became known that Pavel Durov had gone abroad and had no intention of returning to Russia. He said this in an interview with TechCrunch. He noted: “Unfortunately, it is impossible to run an Internet business in this country.”

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

Durov constantly moves from country to country, 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.” 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.

Views and beliefs

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, he spoke about seven things that he gave up many years ago, and which, in his opinion, negatively affect consciousness: 1) Alcohol 2) Animal meat 3) Pills and any pharmaceutical products 4) Nicotine and other narcotic substances 5) Coffee, black and green tea, energy drinks 6) Fast food, sugar, carbonated drinks 7) Television and its analogues.

Relationship to Facebook

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

Business style

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

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