In his senior year, he teamed up with his old friends Yitzchak Mirilashvili and Lev Leviev, as well as his math whizz brother to build a college-oriented social network (helping to earn him the nickname “the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia”). Petersburg State University, Durov developed a number of online resources for its students including the university forum. And much like its analogue from across the pond, the company traces its roots to a college campus.ĭuring his studies at the prestigious St. VK was conceived as an attempt to bring a version of Facebook into Russian cyberspace. When VK launched in 2006, MySpace reigned supreme and Facebook was just about to hit 12 million users. Much of Durov’s early career was inspired by the Web2 boom that was in full swing across Silicon Valley. His standoff with the Russian government and dramatic departure from VK only cemented his legendary standing among internet savvy Russians. But before launching it, he was known best for founding VK, which is by far the most popular social network among Russian speakers, with over 500 million registered accounts. Telegram currently boasts 500 million global users, and has proven particularly popular with political activists. The story of how the enigmatic billionaire came to create his companies, developed a penchant for free-spirited trolling and came to help subvert government overreach have become part of internet lore. After managing to achieve the feat twice, Durov has become a sort of global celebrity. He had previously been the CEO of Russian social media giant VK.com -but then the Russian government pushed him out.īuilding one major social media platform is difficult enough. Its founder, Pavel Durov, had his reasons for wanting to create an app that protected user privacy and could facilitate uncensored communications along with giving a middle finger to authoritarian regimes. Social messaging app Telegram is known around the globe as a go-to platform for crypto enthusiasts and populist uprisings.
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