What you need to know about Telegram founder Pavel Durov

Pavel Durov, the billionaire founder of Telegram, is in the headlines as he faces multiple charges by French authorities, being accused of allowing illicit content to run on the messaging platform. Durov's lawyer calls the investigation "absurd."

But who is Pavel Durov? Let's dive into his story and discover more about the man behind one of the world's most popular messaging apps. 

Pavel Durov was born in 1984 in Leningrad, now known as St. Petersburg, into a family of university professors. When he was just four years old, his father received an academic position in Turin, Italy, prompting the family to relocate. 

Although he displayed an early interest in programming, Durov studied language, enrolling in English Philology and Translation at St. Petersburg State University. (Philiology is the study of language in historical literature.)

During his university years, Durov earned some of the most prestigious scholarships, including those from the President and the Russian government. But even as a student, he was already involved in projects that would later bring him fame and fortune – working on various online ventures.

In 2006, Durov and his brother Nikolai founded the social network VKontakte. To fund the startup, Durov borrowed $30,000 from his father. Nikolai had won multiple golds at the International Mathematical Olympiad, for pre-university students, and went on to get a maths PhD.

It's often said that VKontakte took a lot of inspiration from the American social network Facebook. Pavel Durov acknowledged the similarities but commented, "Facebook showed us not how to do things, but how not to do them. The key was understanding what to avoid."

In 2013, Durov sold his stake in VKontakte and left Russia after facing pressure from Russian authorities for over two years.

Durov stated that the authorities had demanded the removal of online communities of Russian opposition activists and requested personal data of users involved in the 2013-2014 Ukrainian uprising. Durov refused these demands and chose to leave the country.

After considering London, Berlin, Singapore and San Francisco, he ultimately decided to move to the United Arab Emirates. 

In 2013, the Telegram messaging app was launched. Durov has said that the idea for a new messenger came to him after a visit from security services in 2011. When he wrote to his brother Nikolai about it, he realized there was no secure way to communicate with loved ones. 

Security became the core marketing strategy for Telegram, promoted under the slogan "Taking back our right to privacy."

And it worked – in June 2014, Telegram was named the fastest-growing startup in Europe, and by February 2016, it had surpassed 100 million users.

In 2018, Russia tried to block Telegram but failed, eventually lifting the ban in 2020. This happened because Durov refused to provide encryption keys to security services. Instead, he trolled them by sending a photo of actual metal keys. This scandal only increased Telegram's popularity, both in Russia and abroad.

It wasn't just pressure from Moscow though, according to Durov in an interview with Tucker Carlson in April. He accused the Federal Bureau of Investigation of trying to hire a Telegram programmer so the U.S. government could gain access to user data.

Today, Telegram has nearly a billion users and is among the top five messaging apps worldwide. For now, all attempts to block Telegram seem to be working in its favor, gaining it even more fans.

But will the ongoing investigation in France impact Telegram's growth this time?

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