Pavel Durov

Entrepreneur

Pavel Durov was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia on October 10th, 1984 and is the Entrepreneur. At the age of 39, Pavel Durov biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

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Other Names / Nick Names
Pavel Valerievich Durov, Russian Mark Zuckerberg
Date of Birth
October 10, 1984
Nationality
Russia, Saint Kitts and Nevis
Place of Birth
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Age
39 years old
Zodiac Sign
Libra
Networth
$17 Billion
Profession
Computer Scientist, Entrepreneur
Social Media
Pavel Durov Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 39 years old, Pavel Durov has this physical status:

Height
175cm
Weight
74kg
Hair Color
Dark Brown
Eye Color
Dark Brown
Build
Athletic
Measurements
Not Available
Pavel Durov Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
Not Available
Hobbies
Not Available
Education
D. K. Fadeev Academic Gymnasium
Pavel Durov Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
Not Available
Children
2
Dating / Affair
Alena Shishkova, Viktoria Odintcova
Parents
Valery Semenovich Durov, Albina Durova
Siblings
Nikolai Valeryevich Durov (Older Brother) (Programmer, Mathematician, Entrepreneur)
Other Family
Semyon Petrovich Tulyakov (Grandfather) (World War II Veteran, Honored with the ‘Order of the Red Star’, the ‘Order of the Patriotic War’, and the ‘Order of the Great Patriotic War’)
Pavel Durov Career

In 2006, Durov started VKontakte with Ilya Perekopsky, later known as VK, which was initially influenced by Facebook. During the time when he and his brother Nikolai built up the VKontakte website, the company grew to a value of $3 billion.

In 2011, he was involved in a standoff with the police in Saint Petersburg when the government demanded the removal of opposition politicians' pages after the 2011 election to the Duma; Durov posted a picture of a dog with his tongue out wearing a hoodie and the police left after an hour when he did not answer the door.

In 2012, Durov publicly posted a picture of himself extending his middle finger and calling it his official response to Mail.ru Group's efforts to buy VK. In December 2013, Durov decided to sell his 12% to Ivan Tavrin (at that time 40% of the shares belonged to Mail.ru Group, and 48% to the United Capital Partners). Later, Tavrin resold these shares to Mail.ru Group.

On 1 April 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 Russo-Ukrainian War which had started in February. However, Durov himself claimed it was an April Fool's Joke on 3 April 2014.

On 16 April 2014, Durov publicly refused to hand over the personal 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 21 April 2014, Durov was dismissed as CEO of VK. The company claimed it was acting on his letter of resignation a month earlier that he failed to recall. 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 VK group dedicated to the Euromaidan protest movement. 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".

Upon leaving Russia, he obtained Saint Kitts and Nevis citizenship through donating $250,000 to the country's Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation, and secured $300 million in cash within Swiss banks. This allowed him to focus on creating his next company, Telegram, focused on an encrypted messaging service of the same name. Telegram was headquartered in Berlin and later moved to Dubai. In January 2018 it was revealed that, in a bid to monetize the growing success of Telegram, Durov was launching the "Gram" cryptocurrency and the TON platform. It raised a total of $1.7 billion from investors. However, these ventures were halted by American regulator SEC which argued in courts that Grams bypassed U.S. financing laws and should return the money to its investors.

In 2018, Russia attempted to block Telegram, after the company refused to cooperate with Russian security services. A leaked letter by an FSB employee stated that the block was actually tied to the company's intention to launch the Telegram Open Network. During the attempted block period, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs continued to operate official channels on the app. The block order was lifted in 2020, after two years of block attempts, which the service reportedly evaded using domain fronting. The stated reason was Telegram agreeing to "counter terrorism and extremism" on the platform.

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