Telegram’s CEO built two dominant social networks from scratch before 40 and has fathered more than 100 biological children. He’s also facing up to 10 years in prison

• The telegram only notified Its first annual profit, raking $ 540 million in 2024. We also hit $ 1.4 billion, from $ 343 million last year. The company owned by Pavel Durov, the 40-year-old billionaire Wunderbuth often called Mark Zuskerberg in Russia, and also faced criminal cases today.

Pael Durov, the man behind the encrypted telegros message, one of the most interesting tech world numbers. While he was always compared to Mark Zuckerberg, his penchant was given for launching successful social-media to world companies and People of free trial-Lon musk.

Durov, like Musk, a pro-natalist, which means he is a strong support with many children who can dominate the planet. Although Durov said “never married and wanted to live alone,” he also announced in July that he “over 100 children.” To a postger postgerThe billionaire CEOs have been claiming a friend who approached him over 15 years ago to donate a hundred children with children available to families who want to have children. “

Durov is a fascinating and polarizing figure, with a fair side of holes and peaks in 40 years of life.

A math and coding prodigy

Pavel Durov was born in October 1984 in the second largest city in Russia, St. Petersburg – Although it was Lenesrad before, before the Soviet Union was officially dissolved in 1991.

While Durov’s grandfather Sitting in the Soviet Red Army During the Second World War, and his The father is a scholarship And the head of the faculty of Saint Petersburg State University, many years grow in Turin, Italy, after moving the Mediterranean country at the age of four.

Durov, like his older Nikolai, a mathematical prodigy. In one of his rare interviews, A 2024 sitting with Tucker CarlsonDurov said he and Nikolai won many gold medals at the International Math Olympiad and showed on Italian television to resolve cubic equations in real-time.

When his family returned to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, they brought a parting gift from Italy: One IBM personal computer. Durov told Carlson that means he “is one of the few families of Russia to teach ourselves how to program.”

The Mark Zuckerberg in Russia

Durov was a passionate coder. He built a Offer Forum For his Saint at University-Saint Petersburg, the same school where his father worked – as he was a student there. But in 2006, one of his classmates indicates him on Facebook, carrying a pair to create a social network themselves. (A third classmet becomes third co-founder.)

Their creation, vkontakte (also known as VK), launched in September that year, and earned a million users only eight months later. Less than a year after that, their user base burns in 10 million. In December 2008, Durov was the proud operator of Russia’s most famous social network.

Durov reigns as CEO of VK through April 21, 2014. Three weeks after April Fool joke submitted his board launched on April 1, but pressed it just meant as a joke-The company has taken him as VK executive.

“Interestingly, shareholders don’t have the courage to do this directly and I know about my mysterious rejection from the press,” Durov wrote to VK on the day he was fired.

Durov, with a struggle of relations with Russian authorities after refusing many requests on opposition pages from VK, said his dismissal captured by Vladimir Putin’s allies. Just five days ago, on April 26, Durov has left Russia And said he had “no plan to return” because “the country that is not compatible with internet business at the moment.”

Telegram creative

In his time as CEO of VK, Durov has several run-in with government. So in 2013, when he had first social network efforts, he and his brother Nikolai decided to launch encryption, to keep private messages from government interference. The brothers launched the Messenger of the telegram in August year, first for iPhone, and later for Android devices.

(One year ago, Mark Zuckerberg ordered Facebook to buy whatsapp in a blockbuster of $ 19 billion deal. Durov told TechCrunchMike Butcher At the time “no matter how many messages are messaging there when they all suck.”)

After Durov’s leaving his resident from VK, The New York Times reported Durov “moves from one country to different weeks with a small band of computer programmers. One day he was in Paris, another in Singapore.” Later, Durov built the shop with his team in Berlin, Germany, in 2014 soon moving the head of Dubai in 2017. The company says it The servers are stretched out Across the World So “no single government or block of like-minded countries can intrude on a user’s privacy and freedom of expression,” according to a company spokesperson, who also added that telegram “will perform the individual’s IP address and phone number to the relevant Authorities “If a User is a suspect in a criminal case that would violate the app’s terms of service.

Telegram now has a billion users and become useful for the first time last year. According to The financial seasonAfter announcing a $ 173 million loss of 2023 to $ 343 million income, the company reports $ 540 million of $ 1.4 billion income. Telegram, releasing about $ 2.4 billion bundles in the past four years (and repeated $ 375 million Xai in September, “interact with Xai in September,” interact with Xai in September.

Legal problem

On August 2024, French authorities restrained Durov After his private jet was left out of Paris, which he moved and allowed illegal activities – as sexual drug abuse – the flow of sexual abuse of drugs – the flow of drug abuse – Drugs’ sexual abuse – the flow of sexual abuse – the flow of drug abuse – the flow of sexual abuse – the flow of sexual abuse of drugs – the flow of sexual abuse Drug abuse – the flow of sexual abuse – in the flow of telegram. While he was forced to remain in the country of time, he finally allowed to leave France in March this year, despite temporary, Visit Dubai.

Durov faced up to 10 years in prison, when convicted. Her criminal case has a resettlement of debate around the size tech executives should be responsible for activities that occur on their platforms. The founder of the Binance Changeppeng Zhao associated with 2024 in cash violations that came to the Crypto platform, and Rossh Urbrhicht, Maker of Black Market Silk Silk have been convicted of internet use to facilitate a criminal business. But while Ulbricht was undergoed double life in prison, plus 40 years, with no possibility of parole, he was released in jail after jail, January 2025, after he received A perfect and unconditional apology by President Trump.

This story originally shown Fortune.com

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