Words matter. These are the best Pavel Durov Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I’m not afraid of anything. I’m not afraid to die, if I have to.
Political oppositionary activity on the Russian Internet caused the government to pass laws limiting both service operators and users. As a result, the Russian tech environment became much less liberal, losing freedom as one of its competitive advantages.
VK is famous for its competitions among third-party developers who build alternative versions of VK on its open API.
WhatsApp doesn’t only fail to protect your WhatsApp messages – this app is being consistently used as a Trojan horse to spy on your non-WhatsApp photos and messages.
Privacy is not for sale, and human rights should not be compromised out of fear or greed.
The first thing that we wanted to make clear is that nobody has to trust anybody. We don’t take people’s trust for Telegram for granted.
I’m in a situation where I can determine my own future.
I’m out of Russia and have no plans to go back.
You know the interesting thing about encryption is that it cannot be secure just for some people.
WhatsApp has a consistent history – from zero encryption at its inception to a succession of security issues strangely suitable for surveillance purposes.
Telegram is heavily encrypted and privacy-oriented, but we’re no friends of terrorists – in fact, every month we block thousands of ISIS-related public channels.
Whenever technological advancement is made it can always be used both for good or for bad.
The best legislative initiative – is the absence of one.
A lot of people in the western world don’t realize how much taxes limit their options. You can end up paying almost half your income in taxes, which basically means you’re working for the government for 180 days a year. I think I can find better ways to use the money I make for the benefit of society.
My brother is a genius. When we went to Italy, he was on the local television channel as a prodigy, who could solve very sophisticated mathematical equations. He was only seven or eight years old but he could solve mathematical problems for fourteen year olds.
Compromises lead you nowhere. You can’t be happy doing something you don’t believe in.
The No. 1 reason for me to support and help launch Telegram was to build a means of communication that can’t be accessed by the Russian security agencies, so I can talk about it for hours.
The probability that we will get into a car accident is a million times higher than the probability we will suffer as a result of terrorist act.
I believe in small governments or no governments. I think the majority of people want to have big government, a big brother taking care of them.
I think we should be less dependent on the outdated concept we call countries.
Some things like the layout of the early VKontakte was very influenced by Facebook. Otherwise it could take ages for me to build, and I was not a professional designer.
To put it simply, it doesn’t matter how many other messaging apps are out there if all of them suck.
As a foreign company and offshore entity we will not be obliged to comply with the rules of Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and countries like that.
Looking back, there hasn’t been a single day in WhatsApp’s 10 year journey when this service was secure.
When I was 11, I started building games for IBM PC XT.
Unless you are cool with all of your photos and messages becoming public one day, you should delete WhatsApp from your phone.
Few people outside the Telegram fan community realize that most of the new features in messaging appear on Telegram first, and are then carbon-copied by WhatsApp down to the tiniest details.
In my days in Russia, I visited some very rich guys. I visited big ships, private airplanes, houses – and I know for sure I don’t want this for myself.
Not everybody’s actions are based on ideas. Some people’s actions are based on profit.
To be truly free, you should be ready to risk everything for freedom.
I’m motivated by curiosity.
We think that providing this kind of secure private means of communication for the masses for 99.999 percent of people that have nothing to do with terrorism means more than the threat that we see from the other side.
Governments should be smaller. In fact, governments and countries in general are less important than we think they are. They take credit for processes they have nothing to do with.
The U.S. can use its control over the dollar and the global financial system to shut down any bank or bank account in the world. It can use its control over Apple and Google to remove apps from the App Store and Google Play.
The global threat of ‘Big Brother’ can actually be conquered purely by technology.
I was born in Leningrad, U.S.S.R., before my father got an appointment at a university in Italy and we moved to Italy. I spend a few years there before my family returned to Russia.
Armed police at my apartment doors in 2011 was scary, but the sudden – and not exactly legal – takeover of 48 per cent of VKontakte, that coincided with a fabricated case against myself in April 2013, was more frightening.
Any government that likes to call themselves democratic should welcome Snowden and allow him to live in their country.
When I turned 17, I created a website for the students at my University. It enabled students to share lectures and discuss exams, and became popular very quickly.
Me myself, I’m not a big fan of the idea of countries.
I’m very happy right now without any property anywhere.
Obviously I do have political views – I’m a believer in the free-market economy; I also believe that without competition and respect for human rights there will be no progress because nobody will feel safe and free.
In my past, it looked like I could get into trouble in Russia – but I was not afraid then, and I’m not afraid now. Fear paralyses you and doesn’t let you go forward.
I hope Telegram will be able to rely on the community even more than VK since it’s a non-profit project that hopefully will be able to attract people who share the idea behind it.
I have a clean conscience and ideals that I am willing to defend.
It’s super-interesting to see what it’s like to run the most popular social media platform in a country like Iran.
In America they started to refer to Telegram as ‘ISIS’s preferred messaging app,’ But in reality there are many more legitimate users.
If you have WhatsApp and your phone goes down, you don’t have access to your messages. You can’t send documents and it’s not private.
We had a simple choice: Either betray our values or keep our values and leave Russia to try to do something new.
I consider myself a legal citizen of the world.
