Background
Pavel Durov was born in Leningrad (now Street St. Petersburg), but spent most of his childhood in Turin, Italy. His father Valery (who holds a Doctor of Philosophy in philology) was employed there.
Businessperson computer scientist
Pavel Durov was born in Leningrad (now Street St. Petersburg), but spent most of his childhood in Turin, Italy. His father Valery (who holds a Doctor of Philosophy in philology) was employed there.
He attended an Italian elementary school, and after returning to Russia in 2001 attended the Academy Gymnasium in Saint St. Petersburg. In 2006, he graduated from the Philology Department of the Saint St. Petersburg State University, where he received a first class degree.
He is the younger brother of Nikolai Durov. Since losing control over VK in a conflict with Russian authorities in 2014, the brothers are travelling the world in self-imposed exile as citizens of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Pavel Durov"s early life and career are described in detail in the Russian-language book The Durov Code.
The True Story of VK and its Creator (2012).
Durov started VKontakte, later known as VK, in 2006, which was initially influenced by Facebook. In 2011 he was involved in a standoff with a police team outside his home in Saint St. Petersburg after the government demanded the removal of opposition politicians" pages after controversial parliamentary elections.
They left after about an hour. In December 2013, Durov was pressured into selling his 12% of VK stock to Ivan Tavrin, the owner of the major Russian internet company Mail.ru, who subsequently sold it to Mail.ru, giving it 52% majority ownership of VK. In 2014, Mail.ru bought all remaining shares became the sole owner of VK. Dismissal from VK On April 1, 2014, Durov submitted his resignation to the board.
At first, due to the fact the company confirmed he had resigned, it was believed to be related to the Ukrainian crisis which started in February.
However, Durov himself claimed it was an April Fool"s Joke on April 3, 2014. On April 16, 2014, Durov publicly refused to hand over data of Ukrainian protesters to Russia"s security agencies and block Alexei Navalny"s page on VK. Instead he posted the relevant orders on his own VK page claiming that the requests were unlawful. On April 21, 2014, Durov was dismissed as Chief Executive Officer of VK. The company claimed it was acting on his letter of resignation a month earlier that he failed to recall.
Durov then left Russia and stated that he had "no plans to go back" and that "the country is incompatible with Internet business at the moment".
Life after VK This allowed him to focus on creating his next company, Telegram, which was originally based in Berlin and focused on an encrypted messaging service.
Durov holds is a self-described libertarian and vegetarian. In 2012, he published manifestos described by commentators as "anarcho-capitalist" detailing his ideas on improving Russia. Foreign his twenty-seventh birthday in 2011, he donated a million dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation, the founder and honorary chairman of which is the fellow Libertarian Jimmy Wales.
Durov then claimed the company had been effectively taken over by Vladimir Putin"s allies, suggesting his ouster was the result of both his refusal to hand over personal details of users to federal law enforcement and his refusal to hand over the personal details of people who were members of a VKontakte group dedicated to the Euromaidan protest movement.