Pavel Durov is a Russian businessman, creator of the VKontakte social network. The Web has become immensely popular, for many it has completely replaced the Internet and its understanding. Pavel was not only the owner of the VKontakte company, but he himself took part in the development of the social network and carried out improvements. This caused a lot of jokes, appeals and memes, which further glorified the entrepreneur. The phrase "Durov, return the wall" marked a whole era in the development of Runet.
Durov makes no secrets from his success story. Having earned more than one million dollars, he came to the conclusion that money is not a goal for a person, but a direct path to slavery. The principles that the programmer is now guided by are dressed in the form of a list of 25 points, each of which is a kind of commandment for those who dare to stand out from the crowd and follow the path of self-improvement and creation.
Childhood and youth
Pavel Durov was born in October 1984. Parents are the people who instilled in their children a love of work and an inexhaustible optimism that does not depend on either the environment or the political situation.
Father, doctor of philological sciences, Valery Semenovich - a native of Leningrad, according to unconfirmed information, nee Tulyakov. Having married Albina Durova, the future mother of a businessman, he took the name of his wife. In 1992, a specialist in ancient literature, headed the department at the philological faculty of St. Petersburg State University. Albina is from Omsk, she also taught at this university. There is an unconfirmed version on the Internet about the Jewish nationality of the Durovs.
Pavel has a brother Nikolai, a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences. Nikolai early showed himself as a gifted programmer, as a child he participated in mathematical competitions and olympiads and twice became the absolute world champion in programming among students. Later, it was Nikolai who would help his brother create the famous social network and for a long time would be the technical director of the company.
What Mikhail Petrov, Albina's son from his first marriage, does is unknown.
Initially, Pavel lived and studied in Turin, and after returning to Russia he entered the Academic Gymnasium. The main direction of study is the knowledge of the basics of philology. In the 11th grade, he became interested in programming, virtual computer projects.
After graduating from the gymnasium with a silver medal, the young genius enters the Faculty of Philology at St. Petersburg State University. During his stay at the university, he often became a scholarship holder and laureate of the Potanin Prize.
In addition to learning languages and programming, Pavel Durov was engaged in military training. Received rank - lieutenant of the reserve. University studies continued until 2006, ending with a red diploma. Pavel never took the document. Even in his youth, the future millionaire decided that he did not want to spend every day on monotonous work in the office, and determined for himself that he was created for the Internet.
"In contact with"
Early developments in messaging facilitation and useful information introduced by Durov at the university. The created library for searching for important materials, abstracts and a small student forum have become a new hobby for the young programmer. The site received the name of the author - durov.com.
The next stage in the development of the network space is the site spbgu.ru, the prototype of VKontakte. After this platform, Pavel already imagined how relationships should be built in the future social network.
The desire to create a practical portal for communication appeared after meeting with a friend who came from abroad. The story about the social network Facebook, which stores complete information about users, made it possible to create a layout of a multi-user Russian-language resource.
Pavel Durov was engaged in the development of VKontakte together with his brother Nikolai. The first official user registered on the social network in October 2006. The network was initially closed and replenished by participants only with the help of invitations (requests). In December 2006, the portal began registration of all comers.
The developer of the social network "VKontakte" Pavel Durov The promotion of the project and its expansion took about 2 years. The period of formation allowed to significantly improve the design and expand the interface of the project as much as possible. The resulting system has become convenient and practical. In 2008, the number of registered users of VKontakte exceeded 20 million, and Pavel Durov became a real legend, who was compared with the creator of Facebok.
At the beginning of 2014, Pavel sold part of the shares (12%) and on April 1 from the post of CEO of VKontakte. After 2 days, he refuted his own statement, calling it April fool's joke. However, already on April 21, Durov was nevertheless fired. Disputes about the reasons for the removal of Pavel from the company he created have not subsided to this day.
According to a number of business publications, these 12% were bought by the former director of MegaFon, Ivan Tavrin. The acquisition cost the top manager between $360 million and $480 million.
After a long “war”, Pavel Durov sold VK, or rather, his share of shares, to Mail.ru Group, which users do not like for actively imposing advertising and side developments. The company became the owner of a controlling stake (52%). In the same year, the UCP fund, the owner of the remaining shares, said that the actions of Mail.ru Group were contrary to the interests of VK, and initiated legal proceedings.
After leaving VKontakte, Pavel did not stop developing new projects. Telegram appeared on August 14, 2013. The new messenger did not have revolutionary functionality, its feature was different. This Durov project used a special technology for encrypting correspondence, which was invented by Nikolai, and created a truly secure communication channel. Pavel himself admitted that this idea came to mind when one day special forces knocked on his house, and he could not even tell his relatives about it, not being sure that the message would not be intercepted by the authorities of this detachment.
Government representatives suggested several times that Telegram should be blocked if it did not change its privacy policy, but Pavel remained adamant and officially stated that the messenger did not and would not give out users' personal data.
On April 22, 2014, information appeared that Pavel Durov was leaving the country and was not going to return. And if a month before that, the programmer wrote about Russia as a place worth living in, then after that his opinion changed completely in the opposite direction. The businessman has published a list of requirements, after which he is ready to return to his homeland. The text exposes many political and social problems of the state, so it quickly dispersed into quotations.
According to Durov, it is now impossible to work in Russia, and abroad he will come to grips with the development of a special social network for mobile devices. Given the huge potential of the contractor and sufficient work experience, one could safely expect that the project being developed would turn out to be of high quality and arouse justified interest from users.
Paul St. Kitts and Nevis, but does not live there. The passport of this island nation allows Durov to travel the world without hindrance.
In 2016, Pavel entered into an open confrontation with the FBI. Durov again refused to give out the personal data of users, and the FBI hacked Telegram.
Pavel Durov is a dollar billionaire. In 2018, Forbes estimated the fortune of the Russian at $ 1.7 billion. And these figures seem to analysts to be greatly underestimated, since various applications should bring Pavel much more. For example, the browser game "Happy Farm" alone gives about 10 billion rubles. in year. In addition to it, there are other popular applications created by Durov on the market. In the same year, Pavel, only according to the results of official income, got into the lists of the richest people in Russia and took 58th place.
Personal life
Durov adheres to libertarian views and supports vegetarianism, according to some reports, even became a vegan. In addition, Pavel does not drink alcohol and loves to travel.
Durov's acquaintances claim that in life he is the same workaholic that he looks like when looking at his biography. Pavel is polite, uncommunicative and does not like to talk about his personal life. At the same time, it is known that Pavel is a big fan beautiful girls, his photos with models often appeared on the Internet.
This mystery has given rise to many speculations. It is believed that the young entrepreneur is not officially married, but it is customary to talk about a common-law wife who gave birth to two children to Pavel, according to some media. But if the arguments and evidence of Durov's communication with the girl can be found, then there is no evidence that the billionaire became a happy father. On the pages on social networks and on Instagram, the girl also does not have photos with small children, just as Pavel is not among her friends.
Pavel Durov is also credited with relations with and, but there is no confirmation of this.
Not only marital status businessman attracts attention, but also his appearance. Durov's classmates claim that in his youth he had sparse hair. Pavel was never bald, but suffered from androgenetic alopecia. In official photographs, the young businessman flaunts chic hair.
Pavel Durov before and after a proposed hair transplant This has given rise to numerous controversies. Some sources say that Durov transplanted his hair. The most extravagant commentators believe that Paul wears a wig.
A businessman with an average height of 176 cm has an athletic build. Pictures of Pavel with a naked torso, published with the hashtag #PutinShirtlessChallenge, in 2017 served as the basis for numerous memes.
Scandals
The tough temper of Pavel Durov often led to scandalous incidents. So, a wide resonance in society was caused by a photo of Pavel with his middle finger raised up, which, according to the creator of VKontakte, was the official response to the proposal of Mail.ru Group to buy out the social network.
No less resonance was caused by the scandal with the throwing out of the window of the central office of VKontakte banknotes folded in the form of paper airplanes. This act of Pavel Durov was fiercely criticized by Russian cultural and political figures. Pavel himself admitted in an interview that he had no malicious intent, he only wanted to create a festive atmosphere for the City Day. He said that he threw money out of the window and was glad to see both the pandemonium and the reaction of people, not because he wanted to demonstrate wealth and significance, but because he saw surprise and joy on the faces of the townspeople.
Pavel Durov According to rough estimates, Durov and the top managers of VKontakte threw about $ 2 thousand out the window. It is difficult to reproach Pavel for snobbery and commercialism, at that time he lived in a rented apartment near the office and always allowed the company's developers to spend the night at his place.
VKontakte experienced many problems due to non-observance of copyright. The conflict with the Vedomosti newspaper led to mutual blocking of links and pages. After the singer's claims, the founder of the network deleted all his compositions, the artist did the same with his own account and returned to VKontakte only in 2016, after Durov left and the monetization of listening to music.
Brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov In 2013, a video was discussed, capturing a “man resembling Durov” driving a Mercedes. The car runs over a traffic police officer, and the driver is hiding. Later, a spokesman for VKontakte claimed that Pavel did not drive a car at all. As a result, the businessman escaped criminal punishment, and it was not possible to attract him under an administrative article due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
Pavel Durov now
In 2017, Pavel reset the lists of friends and subscribers in
Purposeful and extraordinary person Pavel Durov attracted everyone's attention with a bold project VKontakte.ru. The project brought fame and glory to the young entrepreneur, which gave rise to many rumors and envious slander. We will try to lift the veil over the life and work of an intellectual talented programmer by presenting to your attention his biography.
Path to success - biography of Pavel Durov
The native Leningrader Pavel Durov was born into the intelligent family of the famous philologist Valery Durov, in which the eldest son Nikolai was already growing up, on October 10, 1984. Highly educated parents were able to raise worthy sons, taught them to be decent honest people, becoming for them a model of diligence, optimism and the ability to withstand the blows of fate.
With great warmth and love, Pavel speaks about his parents, recalling his childhood, several years of which he happened to spend in the city of Turin in northern Italy, where his father was engaged in scientific activities.
A precocious boy, after returning to St. Petersburg, continued his studies at general education school, sometimes confusing their teachers with non-trivial questions. A little later, having successfully passed the competitive selection, he moved to the Academic Gymnasium. Studying here was interesting, but not easy, because real geniuses of the exact sciences - mathematics, physics, computer science - studied in the class.
Pavel chose the latter - computer science, although he valued all mathematical disciplines above others. Already at an early age I understood that I had to do what I loved. He knew how to highlight the main thing, strove for knowledge and improvement of the world.
Resourceful and witty, he learned to program early. Once, for fun, he placed a portrait of a mathematics teacher on school computers as a screensaver, cracked passwords several times, opening himself access to them. One of his classmates, A. Dievsky, still remembers that when talking with Pavel, it was difficult to understand whether he was joking or speaking seriously.
Gradually, computer pranks grew into a real passion for programming, skill grew. In the future, he already saw himself as an Internet totem.
The story of Pavel Durov - the first projects
But life decreed otherwise. Continuing family traditions, Durov, after graduating from the gymnasium, followed in the footsteps of his father and entered the philological faculty of St. Petersburg State University, successfully graduating in 2006. Studying philological sciences, including foreign languages, he never forgot about programming for a moment, constantly improving his previously acquired skills.
So in student years his first projects were created, such as durov.com, the university forum spbgu.ru. Without any commercial benefit, Pavel promoted them, inflamed verbal battles with himself, making the projects unusually popular and visited. When the number of forum visitors grew to 3,000 people per day, this became a decisive factor influencing the final choice. Durov decided to devote his activities to the creation of new promising projects, although he received a diploma as a translator from English.
By this time, a well-rounded young specialist had developed his own program personal growth, was constantly interested in the latest in sociology, psychology, fiction, led healthy lifestyle life.
The emergence and development of the Vkontakte network
Born in his student years, the idea of creating a new social network, where all participants will be registered under their real names, Pavel was able to implement only after graduating from the university with the help of his friend Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, who took on all the material costs.
After going through a whole series of ordeals, on October 1, 2006, friends established and were finally able to launch the vkontakte.ru network, which later became extremely popular. This day is considered to be the starting point of its history. They did not miss their chance to succeed. The event, which became a real triumph of perseverance and perseverance, did not go unnoticed. The VKontakte network, Durov's favorite brainchild, took pride of place on a par with Odnoklassniki. And in his hands was a block of voting shares.
Paul's new ideas were in full swing. He found original opportunities to attract users, provided them with new services, gave gifts. But a year later, the need for such actions disappeared: the number of users exceeded 3 million. Gradually, investors were found who invested in maintaining promising business plans, which since 2008 began to bring good profits. The number of users is now over 20 million people.
And the 31-year-old businessman Pavel Durov, whose fortune is replenished annually by 8 billion rubles, still remains true to his life credo: “Learn. Learn. Develop. Change yourself from within."
Pavel Durov is a Russian entrepreneur, programmer, one of the founders of the most popular social network in the CIS countries. Former CEO of VKontakte and one of the
Pavel Durov. Biography of a billionaire
Pavel Valeryevich was born on October 10, 1984 in Leningrad. His father is Valery Semenovich Durov - Doctor of Philology, Head of the Department of Classical Philology of the Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg State University.
The Russian billionaire has a brother - Nikolai Valerievich. He is also the technical director of VKontakte, who is a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, as well as a two-time world champion among students in programming.
School years
For the first time, Pavel Durov sat at a school desk in Turin, where his father worked at that time. A few years later, the family returned to Russia. After a short study in regular school Durov became a student of the academic gymnasium at St. Petersburg State University.
Pavel Valerievich studied in depth four foreign languages. Due to poor eyesight, he always sat at the first desk. From the age of 11, Pavel became interested in programming. Hacking a computer network and selecting passwords for computers in the computer science office are well-known pranks that Pavel Durov sinned. Biography of the future Russian entrepreneur continues in
Higher education
After graduating from the Academic Gymnasium, Durov continued his studies at the Faculty of Philology at St. Petersburg State University with a degree in English Philology and Translation. In his student years he became a laureate of the scholarship of the President and the Government of the Russian Federation, he was a laureate three times
In parallel with his studies at the university, he was trained at the military faculty in the specialty "Propaganda and psychological warfare." At the university, he served as a platoon leader in his faculty. At the end of military training, Durov received the rank of second lieutenant in the reserve. In 2006, he graduated with a red diploma, but he has not taken it from the university until now.
During his student days, Pavel Durov began working on several projects designed to make it easier for students to find the information they needed and to improve the quality of scientific and social activities of his university.
First projects
Such projects have become digital library abstracts of the university (durov.com) and a forum for students of St. Petersburg State University (spbgu.ru). They did not bring any financial benefit to their creator, but only helped students of different universities to communicate.
After some time, he became disillusioned with the existing system of organizing user accounts in Runet, where people could hide under any names and avatars. Finding another form of implementing the association of Internet users is the goal that Pavel Durov set for himself at that time.
VKontakte: creation and development of the project
After some time, Pavel met his old friend, who returned from the USA, where he was studying. He told Durov about the Facebook student project. Users posted real photos and information there. Pavel liked this idea, and he decided to create a similar association in the Russian-speaking Internet space.
Durov began to bring the idea to life after graduating from the university. The original name of the project was "Student.ru", but after a while it was changed to "VKontakte". Durov explained this change by saying that in any case, students will become graduates.
On October 1, 2006, Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai open a limited liability company, known to all of us as VKontakte, and register the first domain of the service. Until the end of the year, the project was at the stage of testing and development. Registration was by invitation only. Already in December, Durov opened VKontakte for free registration. During the first days of open access, more than 2,000 users registered on the site.
At the initial stage, the promotion of the project was very successful through viral marketing and many contests for users. By the end of 2006, the servers could no longer cope with the constantly growing number of users, in connection with which the servers were replaced and the software support for the network was improved. In 2007, Durov receives numerous offers to buy the project, but he refuses them and continues to promote the network, attracting investors. In the same year, VKontakte became one of the three most visited Runet sites.
In 2008, the number of users exceeded the 20 million mark. At the same time, monetization of the project started: advertising, gaming applications, which began to bring to software developers a certain percentage of the project's income.
Any popular and profitable project attracts hackers, spammers and others. VKontakte was no exception. The site was repeatedly infected and became a carrier of viruses. In addition, the site made attempts to expand the porn industry, so the developers did not have to sit idle.
Durov and his offspring were repeatedly sued for copyright infringement (for posting films and videos in the public domain on the site). But they did not end successfully for the plaintiffs, since VKontakte is a public resource, and certain users should be held responsible.
In 2011, VKontakte was seriously changed both externally and functionally. New features have appeared: a pop-up message box, convenient photo viewing, the ability to add video files from popular video hosting sites and other useful features.
Income of the creator of VKontakte
By the end of 2010, the company was valued at $1.5 billion. According to official data, the authorized capital of VKontakte at that time was divided as follows:
- Mikhail Mirilashvili - 10%;
- Lev Leviev - 10%;
- Pavel Durov - 20%;
- Vyacheslav Mirilashvili - 60%.
According to these data, in 2011 it was estimated at 7.9 billion rubles. But this figure may not correspond to reality. One "Happy Farmer" brings in about $10 million a year, and there are other, no less popular applications.
But still, based on official data, in 2011 Durov ranked 350th among the richest people in Russia, with 7.9 billion rubles ($260 million) in his accounts.
Since December 2011, he has begun financing various startups selected on a competitive basis, and already in December six of them received $25,000 from the entrepreneur. In January 2012, Durov donated a million dollars to the development of Wikipedia.
In November of the same year, he presented the documentary book "Durov's Code", dedicated to the development of "VKontakte". The film rights were immediately acquired by AR Films. As for Pavel, he reacted extremely negatively to the film adaptation. Despite his position, the film will be released in 2014.
What is he, the founder of VKontakte, in personal terms?
Pavel Durov, whose personal life is of considerable interest primarily to the beautiful half of humanity, does not attend social events, occasionally appears in public.
He is a workaholic, unsociable, polite. Pavel devoted himself almost entirely to running a business. Pavel Durov, whose personal life haunts the press, does not tell anything about it. Therefore, various rumors are spreading, not confirmed by facts.
Business Perspectives
Despite the status of a billionaire, Durov rents an apartment next to the office where he works. His idols are Steve Jobs, Che Guevara. He has a negative attitude towards the social network Facebook and calls it a "sinking ship". Durov is very aggressive in doing business.
His “war” with Mail.ru Group, which is one of the largest shareholders of VKontakte, is known. In 2011, she wanted to absorb and merge the social network with Odnoklassniki. There is a well-known conflict between Durov and the editors of the Vedomosti newspaper related to the innovation of the site, which allows you to watch news from various resources without having to click on active links.
Criticism of Durov
Both eccentric actions and harsh statements that Pavel Durov often makes are criticized. A photo of the founder of VKontakte at the window of his office during the “money rain” immediately caused a flurry of criticism. Bloggers and journalists dubbed this trick “the whim of a merchant”, and the words of the Minister of Culture were even tougher: “A person who treats the people like cattle should get the profession of a seamstress-mechanic in the zone.”
On May 26, 2012, airplanes with banknotes attached were scattered outside Durov's office. Eyewitnesses believe that Pavel Durov organized this, whose photo on the balcony during the turmoil near the building is confirmation of this, and he does not deny it.
On the eve of Victory Day on May 9 of the same year, Durov brought down the anger of many people with his statement on Twitter: “67 years ago, Stalin managed to defend the right to repress the people of the USSR from Hitler.” Many bloggers and various public figures immediately condemned this post and deleted their accounts from VKontakte in protest. Some time later, the press secretary of VKontakte stated that Durov’s sharp statement was due to the fact that his grandfather, who went through the war from beginning to end, was later repressed, and Pavel himself respects Victory Day.
Farewell to your child
Many are interested in the question: "Did Pavel Durov sell VKontakte?" This is partly true. It is known that on January 4, 2014, Durov sold his shares to the CEO of Megafon, Ivan Tavrin. The founder of the most popular social network of the CIS countries filed a letter of resignation on March 21, and a month later his application was accepted. After that, Pavel Durov left VKontakte completely and has no plans to return. Before his departure, the vice president quit, as well as the financial director of the social network.
being CEO USM Advisors, who owns a 52% stake in VKontakte, said: “We were surprised when Durov did not withdraw his resignation, and the owners of VKontakte satisfied his decision a month later. We have always considered that the role of Pavel Durov is very important for the company. We regret that he has decided to step down as CEO."
Perhaps Durov will change his mind and return to the position of VKontakte architect.
Despite all this, the fact remains that Pavel Durov sold VKontakte and left his offspring. He connected his dismissal with the fact that he did not provide the FSB with personal information about people supporting Euromaidan.
Today, the founder of VKontakte is outside Russia and plans to launch a mobile social network, but abroad. Telegram Pavel Durov will appear this year.
Conclusion
Many admire the talent and diligence of Pavel's bright and eccentric personality, others despise him, hinting at plagiarism and huge profits. He was credited with serving in the FSB, state funding of his offspring and the fact that he was just a beautiful sign for the VKonakte project.
Durov always denied all these rumors on his personal page. Despite all this, his social network has an incredible success, which speaks volumes.
There is a statement on Durov's page: “There are very few of those who do, but do not talk. In any case, they are much less than it might seem. Don't waste time. A person is led to success by his actions, not words.